The Ultimate Form of Child Abuse
by Nic Samojluk, February 17, 2015: A recently created video by Loma Linda University [LLU] shows that physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in the Adventist community matches that of society in general. The same is true about the incidence of abortion. You can watch the dramatic testimony of several victims of child abuse and how they managed to overcome these dark experiences of their childhood by clicking on the link provided below.[1]
A Study Dealing With the Ultimate Form of Child Abuse?
As I was watching this video, I wondered if LLU researchers will ever decide to carry out a similar study about the ultimate kind of abuse: abortion. My reasoning is as follows: If child abuse is painful and tragic, what can be as hurtful and damaging as the dismemberment of the body of an unborn child? The victim of child abuse usually survives; the victim of abortion has no such hope. The act is irreversible and final!
Our Adventist Moral Blind Spot
Is such a study involving the ultimate form of child abuse likely to take place in the near future at our LLU? I don’t think so! My reason is as follows: As a community of faith, we have slowly developed a blind moral spot regarding abortion. This started approximately half a century ago.
The Strong Pro-life Position of Our Adventist Pioneers
Most Adventists are aware that our pioneers were definitely pro-life, as evidenced by the statements made by some of the leaders of the early Adventist movement.[2] A classic example is a paragraph taken from an article authored by a pro-lifer that James White, the founder of our publishing work, included in his book Solemn Appeal, in which he condemned the practice of abortion in the strongest terms: “Few are aware of the fearful extent to which this nefarious business, this worse-than-devilish practice, is carried on in all classes of society! Many a woman determines that she will not become a mother, and subjects herself to the vilest treatment, committing the basest crime to carry out her purpose. And many a man, who has as many children as he can support, instead of restraining his passions, aids in the destruction of the babes he has begotten. The sin lies at the door of both parents in equal measure; for the father, although he may not always aid in the murder, is always accessory to it, in that he induces, and sometimes even forces upon the mother the condition which he knows will lead to the commission of the crime.”[3]
How Did Adventists Manage to Jump Over the Life Fence?
The hard question is: How did a pro-life church manage to jump over the life fence into the pro-choice/pro-abortion camp? A fence so high that even Rome did not dare to scale it! And how did we dare to profit from the violation of the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, written by God’s own hand on two tables of stone, and the violation of our own Guidelines on Abortion?
In order to answer this question, we need to remember the days when the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was so hot that the symbolic hands of the Atomic Clock were moved to three minutes before midnight. The fear of an atomic Armageddon was augmented by the uncontrolled demographic explosion in the country of China, and many world leaders warned that this population explosion was to be feared more than an atomic war.
This obsession with the uncontrolled population growth was complicated by the sudden legalization of abortion in the state of Hawaii, where our Castle Memorial Hospital was located. The non-Adventist physicians at said medical facility demanded the right to offer abortion on demand, and our North American Division president, Neal Wilson, caved in to the pressure when he made the following public declaration:
“Though we walk the fence, Adventists lean toward abortion rather than against it. Because we realize we are confronted by big problems of hunger and overpopulation, we do not oppose family planning and appropriate endeavors to control population.”[4]
The Inevitable Result of This Change of Policy
Such a drastic change in Church policy regarding the sacredness of human life resulted in the participation of many Adventist medical institutions in the profitable business of killing human beings at the most vulnerable season of their lives. Here is a list of medical institutions that participated in this new facet of medical service which involved killing in addition to healing:
“Castle Medical Center, Hadley Memorial Hospital, Hanford Community Hospital, Loma Linda University Medical Center, Porter Memorial Hospital, Portland Adventist Medical Center, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, Shawnee Mission Medical Center, Sierra Vista Hospital, Walla Walla General Hospital, Washington Adventist Hospital, and White Memorial Medical Center.”[5]
At least five Adventist institutions admitted that their abortion services included elective abortion. This, of course, was done with full knowledge of the leadership of the Church and with total impunity,[6] which made Adventist pro-lifers wonder about the apparent double standard applied to abortion: How can we declare that the Adventist Church does not condone abortions on demand,[7] but allow our own medical institutions to profit from the same? Isn’t this what Pilate did when he ruled that Jesus was innocent of any crime, but ordered his execution anyway?
The Thrashing of the Hippocratic Oath
This change in policy regarding the sacredness of human life explains LLU’s abandonment of the “Do No Harm” policy found in the Hippocratic Oath [HO] that had been in high esteem for two millennia in the West. Many Adventists are not aware of this change. Compare the so called “Do no harm” contained in the HO with the morally neutral statement contained in the LLU “Physicians Oath.”
“I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.”[8]
“I will maintain the utmost respect for human life. I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity. I will respect the rights and decision of my patients.”[9]
Notice that the abortion prohibition was replaced by the “will respect the rights and decision of my patients.” The obvious purpose of this drastic change was to allow for the provision of abortion services in our LLU medical facility. Seemingly no one has recorded a formal protest against such a fundamental alteration of our traditional respect for human life, except for one LLU professor: Ingrid Blomquist, M.D., an associate professor in the School of Medicine:
“Dr. Blomquist is Board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. She has been elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. Being a Hippocratic physician, she has taken, and continues to believe in the principles of, the Hippocratic Oath. …”[10]
Conclusion
Considering all of the above, my conclusion is that there is an urgent need to restudy our policy of abortion and a need to pay attention to the ultimate form of child abuse: abortion. Yes, even considering that there is money to be made from the killing of innocent human beings who are eagerly waiting to see the light of day.
I am not calling for windowdressing—this has already been done with great success! I am calling for a radical treatment for this moral cancer that is threatening the vitality of our God-given mission to the world. I am calling for the trashing of our “Guidelines on Abortion,” and the restoring of the Hippocratic Oath.
There is no need for any guidelines that negate the crystal clear prohibition contained in the sixth commandment of the Decalogue. God’s unambiguous directive needs no redefinition! We need to restore all ten of God’s rules for human behavior to the place of honor they originally had when the Adventist movement was born!
Nic Samojluk holds an M.A. from La Sierra College (now LSU) and a Ph.D. from Andrew Jackson University. He is the author of From Pro-life to Pro-choice: The Dramatic Shift in Seventh-day Adventists’ Attitudes Towards Abortion, [See Reference 11] Murder in Paradise, [See Reference 12] and of many articles connected with the abortion issue.[See Reference 13]
References
[1] https://acestoohigh.com/2013/01/07/video-end-it-now-understanding-and-preventing-child-abuse/
[3] James White, editor. Solemn Appeal (Battle Creek, Michigan: Stem Press, 1870), 100.
[4] https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1991/August/abortion-history-of-adventist-guidelines
[5] https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1991/August/abortion-history-of-adventist-guidelines
[6] Winslow, Gerald R. “Abortion Policies in Adventist Hospitals.” Spectrum 19/4 (May 1989): 47-50.
[7] https://www.adventist.org/beliefs/guidelines/main-guide1.html
[8] https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html
[9] https://www.susqneuro.com/publications/oaths/index.html#The
[10] https://www.llu.edu/pages/faculty/directory/faculty.html?uid=IBlomquist
[11]https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=&keyWords=Nic+Samojluk&sitesearch=lulu.com&q=&x=18&y=15
[12] https://www.lulu.com/shop/nic-samojluk/murder-in-paradise/paperback/product-21623695.html
Nick has a constant one-topic subject and has been sent packing on other SdA forums. Discuss at your free will but it’s useless as he is most adamant and listens to no opposing views.
Is there any righteous opposing views to murder worth entertaining? I wonder if Jesus entertained such topics as a woman murdering her unborn and finding anything good to say about it. I guess he hasn’t had a chance to sit down for tea with the pro-choice group …to hear their side.smh There is a plague that has swept over Adventists in regard to abortion and the” boasting” of the Sabbath has clouded their minds to the 6th Commandment.
As yet, there has not been a distinct SdA Fundamental Belief on this subject. Maybe they welcome various opinions. But if they are heard, don’t expect that the church will define a requirement of belief on this.
Elaine, we do not have a fundamental belief about rape either. Does this mean that rape should be morally acceptable?
Kelly, your point is spot-on. We SDAs like to talk about keeping the Sabbath, yet conveniently sweep breaking the 6th under the rug. Seems that we have strained at days of the week, and swallowed sucked out baby brains.
Earlysda, there is a bill in South Dakota that would make it illegal to decapitate unborn babies. We condemn Moslem terrorists for decapitating a small number of Christians, yet we have decapitated millions of innocent children and we Adventists have profited from these crimes. We need to repent of this great sin and seek forgiveness!
Nic has two books dealing with the abortion problem in our SDA Church. I invite everyone to read the 1970 and 1971 Guidelines the GC published. They are disgraceful for a Bible-believing church.
If nothing in this world has changed since the early 70s, we would not even be discussing this before Roe v. Wade it was not happening legally.
Ron, I have some good news for pro-life Adventists. Pastor Steve Wohlberg, the founder and director of “White Horse Media” is about to tape a 13 Television series dealing with the abortion issue, and he needs our support and our prayers.
No Elaine, just like ALL of us who still OWN a conscience we do not sell out to those of you who don’t seem to own one. You and yours are the epitome of what freedom has become. I know a somewhat prominent SDA pastor who uses “the silence of Ellen White on the subject to support his pro choice view stating that he is for ‘freedom of conscience’. Hello?! When did freedom of conscience become the freedom from owning a conscience?
So, yes Elaine, there ARE those of us that see this obama nation for what it really is and what it WILL do and IS doing to the SDA denomination. We are willing to reveal that truth really is like art. It requires a line be drawn SOMEWHERE!
(I wanted to ad: that the abortion crowd has turned freedom into free dumb.)
Yes, Gary. The argument that Ellen White was silent on abortion is no excuse for violating the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue. And the argument is FALSE. She never used the word “abortion,” but she used a much stronger word for abortion: MURDER:
“If the father would become acquainted with physical law, he might better understand his obligations and responsibilities. He would see that he had been guilty of almost murdering his children, by suffering so many burdens to come upon the mother, compelling her to labor beyond her strength before their birth, in order to obtain means to leave for them.” [14] 2SM 429-430]
If she condemned the almost murder of an unborn child, can we imagine what she would have said about the actual murder of unborn children?”
If she were alive today, do you think that she would say: “True, I was against the “almost murder of children, but I am not against the actual murder of the unborn”?
John the Baptist’s main topic was “REPENT,” yet Jesus praised his work and commitment to said one topic.
The same could be said of you Mrs. Nelson. Your response to the blogger speaks for itself and is evidence of your own adamant disposition especially concerning your deep resentment and negativity towards Adventism in general. You are one of many who have always attacked Dr. Samojluk often unfairly accusing him of being off topic or one topic as you have done so here in order to show him in bad light. Perhaps you may be in some deep state of denial and quite fearful of the fact that Dr. Samojluk may just be right on this one. Furthermore, just because someone is ‘sent packing’ by others who threaten to ban, censor or censure them for not been part of their preferred groupthink on some forums doesn’t in any way make that particular groupthink right in any way.
Thanks for addressing this timely issue. It invites a conversation that is long past due.
Elaine,
I noticed that you failed to address any of the arguments I presented in the blog. If you believe that I am wrong, please point to my errors.
Do you realize that all the old Testament biblical prophets were also “sent packing,” ignored, ridiculed, and killed for standing for what is right?
John the Baptist could have kept his mouth shut and thus prevented his head from being chopped off!
The Christians who were beheaded and burned live in the Middle East could have probably survived if they had been willing to convert to Islam.
If we are not willing to stand for biblical principles and the Ten Commandments, then what is the moral value of our religion?
Elaine isn’t even a member of the SDA Church, is she? Why does she even bother to claim to have any interest in the topic of abortion and the SDA Church?
Are all abortions in Adventist hospitals performed for Adventists?
Adventist hospitals receive major revenue from the government and insurance companies. Without that source of revenue they could not function. They must abide by all laws and since Roe v. Wade is the law, unless they adopt the rule of Catholic hospitals they cannot afford to refuse elective abortions.
Are you willing to see all Adventist hospitals close?
What about Catholic hospitals that refuse to perform abortions?
This IS the heart of the issue. The Laws of man (opinion) and the law of God. Choose ye this day..
Elaine, your argument is based on a false premise. Catholic hospitals do not offer abortion services and they are not forced out of business.
Besides, Jesus told us that we cannot serve two Masters. We cannot serve money and
God at the same time. Financial considerations should determine our moral behavior. We should have never offered elective or so called “therapeutic” abortions to our patients.
If we compromise with evil on killing, we will eventually compromise on the sacredness of the Sabbath. We have already done this in Germany over half a century ago.
There are many individuals who value the opinions of Elaine. Whether she is or is not a current member of the Adventist Church is irrelevant.
Erv, Elaine might be right on many issues, but she is wrong on this one. I have the suspicion that she is a former Adventist. She knows too much about Adventist issues. She has the right to participate in this discussion. Adventist
Today has no church membership requirement for participation.
Good question!
Yawn, Same ol’same ol’. People were killed in the OT for having sex outside of marriage; consequently, there was essentially not an abortion issue. Within marriage people simply didn’t have abortions, with few exceptions.
Numbers chapter 5 is an exception. In cases of adultery, the woman’s reproductive organs were destroyed and any fetus she was carrying would have also been destroyed. This “abortion” was mandated by God and carried out by priests in the “trial by ordeal for suspected adultery.”
The real issue the Bible dealt with in the Mosaic code was sexual purity i.e., virginity. People have pretty much given up on that now so abortion is the issue but it’s the wrong issue.
The Bible not only allowed but required abortions in certain cases. The priests and God himself were involved in the termination of pregnancies brought about by adultery.
Wow very interesting indeed. I’d like to hear more.
Hansen, Your attempt to rewrite the Bible to fit your twisted version of it is not interesting.
Hansen, If Numbers 5 justifies abortion, then we should stone adulterers today. God’s rule about murder supersedes Mosaic Law. The Sixth Commandment forbids the killing of an innocent human being.
Jesus said: “Moses told you … but I say …” We need to place what the Lord said above the Laws given by Moses. Polygamy and easy divorce were permitted by Moses, but condemned by Jesus. We must hold what God wrote on tables of stone supreme!
Nic, Your attempt to equate being anti abortion with being true to God is nonsense.
Hansen, God’s prohibition against murder can never be “nonsense.”
Our church has bloody hands. How can a church with bloody hands “go through?” How can a church that doesn’t keep all the ten commandments “go through?” Killing any human being regardless of age, size, or level of development is sin!Besides the sixth commandment, we have the Bible admonitions against the shedding of innocent blood, and doing so for profit. How can we justify it?
Juanita, I say a big AMEN to what you said. We do have bloody hands, and we need to fast and pray for God’s mercy and forgiveness for our great sin. We are following in the steps of those who killed the Author of Life and rushed home to keep the Sabbath Holy.
I agree with the article and find it reprehensible that the church condone abortion for any reason. The only area a church should offer help to a woman in regard to abortion is counseling and helping them find repentance.Helping them murder their unborn child is being an accomplice to murder. Just because the world says it’s ok does not mean God does.
Yes, Kelly. And Pastor Wohlberg will be taping a television series dealing with abortion and forgiveness. He will be interviewing an Adventist woman who found healing and peace following her abortion experience. She was interviewed by 3ABN some time ago and she spoke against our “Guidelines on Abortion” at the ASI meeting.
I fully support Nic. Reformers fight an uphill battle. “In the cause of justice, moderation is no virtue.” Those who have not had to stand alone for truth cannot appreciate the difficulties faced by those who do. I have known Nic for over 15 years. He is honest, fair, balanced, and he brings spiritual integrity and love for others — particularly love for the youngest members of our population — to what he does. In the name of openmindedness, please give an ear to his message. Openness is good if it is being open to truth and righteousness.
I have been an Adventist pastor for 26 years and have done my best to speak out for the unborn, hosting pro-life rallies and gift of life Sabbaths in my churches, including letters to politicians. My heart beats with Nic on this issue.
Thanks, Barry. This reminds me of the sermon you preached about abortion and forgiveness. Is it still on the Internet?
@Elaine, if Nic has spoken evil, bear witness to it. If his data and analyses are flawed regarding abortion, please be specific.
Many of us at Spectrum have presented multiple arguments over many months, but they have been ignored by Nic, who is always right If there is only one position the church has taken, please inform us. There is freedom of expression here but this is such a disputed topic with no end.
To accuse the church of “bloody hands” as one comment above with no corroborating evidence. It will always be one person’s opinion over the other UNTIL and when the church makes it a FB that all members must sign. I don’t believe that has ever been done, and doubt that it will.
I stated my personal opinion based on many months with complete knowledge of all the reasons Nic and others have given, but there has been no moves on the church. So, it is a moot point as far as official SdA belief.
Carry on.
Elaine, I agree with you that our “Guidelines on Abortion” were never submitted to a vote of the church in general session. In spite of this, thousands of unborn children were either dismembered or poisoned in our own medical facilities.
Those guidelines were approved by the 1992 Autumn Council. This should have been submitted to the worldwide church at the next General Conference. What happened? Why are our leaders afraid to do what is required?
An issue of this magnitude should have been voted by the church four decades ago. What are we waiting for? At this rate, the Lord will be here and this will still be on the books without the church’s approval.
Instead, our leaders have declared that our church is neutral on abortion. How can we be neutral on a moral issue involving one of God’s Commandments? If we are neutral on killing, shouldn’t we also be neutral on other moral issues like rape and the sexual abuse of children?
A victim or rape can find healing with God’s grace, but there is no such hope for the victims of abortion.
Martin, Adventist hospitals like nearly all, must abide by government rules regarding emergency care and to receive funding from Medi-Cal and private insurance companies, now operating through the government oversight. As long as Roe v. Wad is legal, hospitals are simply operating under government rules.
What about Catholic hospitals that refuse to perform abortions?
Elaine, this makes no sense! Catholic hospitals do not offer abortion services and the government is not closing them.
Nick has not presented any data or analysis, only his opinion. Fair enough. Opinions are why this forum is here. It’s hard to hear him though through the background noise of his arrogance.
FredShoey wrote: “Nick has not presented any data or analysis”
The data and analysis is in my two books dealing with abortion. Here are the links:
Nic Samojluk … is the author of From Pro-life to Pro-choice: The Dramatic Shift in Seventh-day Adventists’ Attitudes Towards Abortion, [See Reference 11] Murder in Paradise, [See Reference 12] and of many articles connected with the abortion issue.[See Reference 13]
[11]http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=&keyWords=Nic+Samojluk&sitesearch=lulu.com&q=&x=18&y=15
[12] http://www.lulu.com/shop/nic-samojluk/murder-in-paradise/paperback/product-21623695.html
Those who assert that abortion is murder are invoking the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” However, the organism killed needed to have personhood. In the story of the creation of Adam, he was a clay figurine until God blew into his nostrils the breath of life causing him to become a living being (Gen 2:7). This suggests that until the fetus is able to sustain life independent of the mother, it lacks personhood. This view is supported by Exod. 21:22 “When men fight with one another and injure a pregnant woman causing her to miscarriage, and no further harm follows, the one who injured her shall be fined according to what the husband demands of him.…” Note, no charge of murder or manslaughter is made. The only consequence is a payment made to the father not to the women as the injured person, but the husband to whom she belongs for his loss of child. It doesn’t seem that an anti-abortion stance is not supported by the Bible.
This asserts a couple of logical leaps. With regard to the breath of life, a fetus receives and processes nutrition and oxygen from its mother throughout the pregnancy and to claim that it is not a living being during that time denies the basics of biology. Also does the fact that Eve received a rib and not a direct breath deny her personhood?
On the issue of Exodus 21, the word means “brought forth.”“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and vhe shall pay as the wjudges determine. 23 But if there is harm,4 then you shall pay xlife for life, 24 yeye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”
In fact if the baby dies verse 22 implies a harm has occurred and the penalty for murder would apply.
Even if it is a tort, Affixing a tort liability to the allegation of causing premature birth does not mean that the fetus should be aborted anymore than paying a Plaintiff justifies any other tort. To argue that this verse somehow justifies the act of striking a woman in order to abort a baby (which is the essence of the argument if you think it through) is abusive and absurd.
Against the rare arguments used to justify a theology of abortion, there are myriad verses supporting the fact that God creates us in the womb and has plans for His children.
The Jews also believed that the breath was life; without breathing, there was no human being. This is supported by recognizing Adam ONLY after God had breathed into him the breath of life. A six week conceptus is NOT a person; and the commandment is murder, not unintentional destruction of life.
Thus, if all miscarriages were considered the loss of human life, why no funeral or burying rites, or even acknowledgement?
This is always between the physiciyan and the parent or parents; the government has been trying to intervene in reproductive rights. Doubtless, few here remember when it was illegal for anyone to educate or provide birth control remedies. Should that also be resurrected? Should religions oppose? They all did when Margaret Sanger fought for the rights for women to have birth control information and was even incarcerated for her work.
The government that controls reproductive rights can make laws as has China: only one child unless it’s female; and thousands of forced abortions have been performed there–some at 8 mos. gestation
Elaine,
You wrote: “The Jews also believed that the breath was life; without breathing, there was no human being.”
Replace the word “breathing” with “oxygen” and your problem is solved. Without oxygen there is no human life. The unborn bab
Besides the “logical leaps” of the “personhood” argument, what about the very much built in connection points to marriage and marriage accountability and turning one the most sacred of all human activities into an bloody toy that destroys any semblance of accountability on SO many levels?
fatherdoc, Your attempt to relegate the living human inside its mother before it’s born to something less than “human” is reprehensible.
Maybe you would have been happy for Mary to abort her first baby?
fatherdoc, have your considered the following:
“Legal Personhood
Some have tried to claim that the unborn child was not a person “under the law”. And yet, there had been precedent for legal personhood for the unborn child established in various court rulings prior to Roe v. Wade.
1795 The unborn child had the right to inherit property. — Doe v. Clark
1798 Unborn children were “entitled to all the privileges of other persons.” — Thelluson v. Woodward
1927 “Non-viability of a fetus should not bar recovery (of damages).” The same case also held the unborn child was a “person” in the eyes of the law. — Torrigan v. Watertown News Co.
1964 An unborn child needed a blood transfusion for Rh factor. The mother refused on religious grounds. The court ruled her right to practice her religion was subordinate to her unborn child’s right to live. — Fitkin v. Anderson
1969 The unborn child could get social security benefits if the father died when the child was still in utero. — Wagner v. Gardner
1971 “The legal conclusions in Griswold as to the rights of individuals to determine without governmental interference whether or not to enter into the process of procreation cannot be extended to … those situations wherein a new life has begun…Once life has commenced, the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose on the state the duty of safeguarding it.” — Steinberg v. Rhoades
(From original compilations by Scientists for Life, The Handbook on Abortion, 1979 ed., and NCCB)”
More: http://masscitizensforlife.org/beginning-end-of-life/abortion/personhood-and-abortion/
fatherdoc,
I have a question for you: Was Jesus a non-person while in his mother’s womb? When did baby Jesus acquire his right to life? Would it have been a sin for Mary to have requested an abortion? She was poor, single and pregnant!
This is a really profound line of questioning. When did Jesus Christ, wholly man, acquire a “right to life?”
The question should not be ignored.
“The only consequence is a payment made to the father not to the women as the injured person, but the husband to whom she belongs for his loss of child. It doesn’t seem that an anti-abortion stance is not supported by the Bible.”
Even if that interpretation were true (which it’s not) it would still conclusively argue for the biblically inherent value of the unborn child, something which relegating it to today’s “choice” status of an unwanted mole does not. You have been arguing for the right to intentionally kill the unborn without any legal repercussions because it holds no value as a “person”. Ex.21 clearly teaches exactly the opposite even when the killing was accidental. Today’s pro-abortion defenders should stop trying to appeal to the Bible for it’s support of the indiscriminate murder of the unborn.
fatherdoc,
Are you aware that most recent translations of the verse you cited use premature birth. This means to me that if there is harm to the baby, the life for life principle applies:
Abortion in the Bible? [Exodus 21:22]
New International Version
“If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.
New Living Translation
“Now suppose two men are fighting, and in the process they accidentally strike a pregnant woman so she gives birth prematurely. If no further injury results, the man who struck the woman must pay the amount of compensation the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve.
English Standard Version
“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine.
New American Standard Bible
“If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman’s husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment.
International Standard Version
“If two men are fighting and they strike a pregnant woman and her children are born prematurely, but there is no harm, he is certainly to be fined as the husband of the woman demands of him, and he will pay as the court decides.
NET Bible
“If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman’s husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides.
GOD’S WORD® Translation
“This is what you must do whenever men fight and injure a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely. If there are no other injuries, the offender must pay whatever fine the court allows the woman’s husband to demand.
King James 2000 Bible
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no mischief follows: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
American King James Version
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
The word “not” in the last sentence should be removed.
Michael, the text means what is says. The miscarriage implies the loss of the fetus. The fetus dies, not comes out and lives. The no harm applies the woman that is she doesn’t die. Verse 23 means that if the woman dies then it becomes a murder or manslaughter charge. An abortion is the termination of a fetus, a pregnancy, not a baby. Embryos and fetuses are not independent, self-determining human beings. This fact has been recognized for centuries. We measure a person’s age form the date of birth, not conception. Fetuses are not counted in the US Census because they are no yet considered persons.
Where does verse 23 say it is only the mother?
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “The miscarriage implies the loss of the fetus. The fetus dies, not comes out and lives.”
Do not forget that most recent Bible translators, which I cited above, use “premature birth” instead of “miscarriage,” leaving no room for your interp0retation. Thus, if there is harm to the baby, the “eye for an eye” principle applies.
“A six week conceptus is NOT a person; and the commandment is murder, not unintentional destruction of life.”
One has to wonder why a person is suddenly defined by a non-scientific, non-academic, non-biblical definition? According to most English dictionaries the definition of a “person” is simply a “human being”. The 6 week old fetus is every bit as human and every bit as being, and every bit as alive, and every bit as growing as the 28-40 week old “conceptus” that leaped for joy at the presence of the 4-13 week old “conceptus” in the virgin’s uterus. Perhaps the former question is answered by the desire to also redefing murder so as to justify the intentional killing of a perfectly healthy, growing, unborn human being.
“Thus, if all miscarriages were considered the loss of human life, why no funeral or burying rites, or even acknowledgement?”
By whom? Every mother I’ve ever known that miscarried mourned their loss even though they (as some mothers do) don’t go thru the traditional ceremonial rites. I know of no one who shrugs this experience off with a cavalier ” Oh well, there was nothing there to begin with.” And when others find out about the loss (if any loss is to be admitted) why all the sympathy? Attempting to justify the unjustifiable is never dependent on factual truth.
“Many of us at Spectrum have presented multiple arguments over many months, but they have been ignored by Nic,”
Knowing Nic and his approach to the issue as I do I find this assertion completely unbelievable. There are simply no moral, logical, or biblical arguments that cannot be truthfully and forcefully answered. Nic has never shied away from a good interaction on His consuming passion. Spectrum may have conjured up multiple arguments but it’s more probable that they didn’t like Nic’s answers then it is that he wouldn’t respond at all.
The civil and criminal courts define “person.” My late husband, a pathologist and medical examiner for two large counties in California testified in hundreds of homicide cases.
In California law, a two-month fetus is not legally a “person” and death is neither a homicide or murder; excepting intentional murder of a pregnant woman in special cases.
To call abortion at 8 weeks “murder of a person” is neither biblical nor legal.
Elaine, I’ve studied the law and the killing of a fetus constitutes murder in California under the Penal Code. Abortion is am exception to the murder statute.
At what gestational age does it become a “person”?
“At what gestational age does it become a “person”?”
You mean a human being? How is a person different from a human being? When do you think the non-human being evolves into a person? Is there a sudden distinguishable point like when it first breathes on it’s own? Would that mean that during the birth cycle it is still a non-human until after the doctor whacks it’s bottom or suctions out it’s breathing apparatus for the first time? When the pregnant woman calls her fetus/unborn child a “baby” does that qualify it for personhood? Or have all the women in history been mistaken about what’s really growing inside them? Can a pregnant woman drink, take drugs, and smoke safely without endangering any other “person”? Do you name a non-person with a person’s name unless you’re mentally challenged? Can a non-person inherit a sin nature? Does a crack baby become one through their independent breathing?
Elaine, at what time in human development do you think God requires moral accountability for us to be our brother’s keeper?
Elaine,
You asked: “At what gestational age does it become a “person”?”
The answer is never. The unborn baby does not become a person. It is a human being from the moment of conception, and there is no difference between a person and a human being.
Read the Bible and you will find out that God treats unborn children as persons. If this were not so, then Jesus would have been a non-person between conception and birth and Mary would have been guiltless if she had chosen an abortion.
Biologically, a zygote or six-week gestation is not a fetus.
The Bible does not draw a line in development.
“Biologically, a zygote or six-week gestation is not a fetus.”
But it is unarguably, human, with human DNA to mark it’s specific identity, and if left alone it will most often “miraculously” develop into a completed human body. Zygote, fetus, newborn, infant,toddler, teenager (yikes, what have we done??), young adult, adult, are all stages of human (a person’s) development. They are never stages of developing into a human.
Elaine,
You wrote: “Biologically, a zygote or six-week gestation is not a fetus.”
Are you aware that fetus is the Latin word for unborn baby?
It is evident that the rule of mans law supersedes whatever it is that Elaine believes and really shows that there is a very large contingent in our church just like her that are of man’s opinion and reveal the degree to which all churchianity has become federalized by the purposeful reduction of morality designed excessively for this very reason by the D.O.E.
The older one gets the more easily it is to view this progression. It is very difficult to be separate anymore from this and still be involved in the denomination sad to say.
The very essence of political correctness is to take the liberal correctness and use it to replace God’s Truth and absolutes, and in fact the very idea of anything absolute is repulsive to these folks – that is unless it is “their” absolute. Then “WATCH OUT!”
What is “God’s Truth” on abortion from the Bible?
Where is there “absolutes” on abortion? What does the Bible say about abortion that has no been already stated in other comments here?
Elaine,
You wrote: “What is “God’s Truth” on abortion from the Bible?”
The Bible is full of statements condemning the shedding of innocent blood. Those who have worked inside abortion clinics do testify that it is a bloody business.
To those considering having an abortion I would say: Go ahead, but your’e not allowed to shed the blood of the unborn baby.
“The civil and criminal courts define “person.”
You mean redefined? But even that only, in the USA, after 1973 and that in contrast to the centuries old English dictionary definition. Did the Supreme Court get it right? Do they get to define what language really means? They also defined a slave as a non-person. Are you good with that? Courts also redefine marriage as being between the same sex. Does that make it morally and truthfully so? So why is a flawed legal system the final authority on the inherent value of an unborn human being?
Elaine,
Scroll up an inch or so and read my response to fatherdoc regarding the legal treatment of personhood.
Doug, you say “One has to wonder why a person is suddenly defined by a non-scientific, non-academic, non-biblical definition?” I gave a Bible text that shows that the status of a fetus is different form the status of the mother. I thought that a Bible text was biblical. It seem that the Supreme Court ruling in Roe vs. Wade is about as academic as one can get. Embryology is the scientific study of the development of a zygote to an embryo to a fetus. Epigenetics tells me about genes being turned on and others turned off in that process of development; so how is the assertion of the non-personhood of a fetus non-scientific. The story of the 6 month old jumping fetus of John is not recorded in Matt. Check out the story of the death of Judas in Matt 27 and in Acts 1. They cannot both be true, one or the other is false. This one story should convince you that the Bible in not an infallible book. You have to use good judgment in evaluating some of these stories. This one I don’t believe.
If you stick to the Bible there is no place at all that sanctions and/or encourages the abortion of children. Exodus 21 does not do this. Some Adventists have developed a unique doctrine on the subject which they claim justifies abortion as a social good but it is not biblical.
Unless someone has yet not shown it, where does the Bible condemn abortion?
Elaine,
You asked: “Unless someone has yet not shown it, where does the Bible condemn abortion?
Exodus 20. If you can perform an abortion without killing the unborn baby, go ahead. But if you kill the baby, you have broken what God has condemned.
“I gave a Bible text that shows that the status of a fetus is different form the status of the mother.”
No you didn’t, you gave a Bible text which which you interpreted to mean the opposite of every other Bible text on the humanity and value of the unborn. Your tweak of Scripture was not only an illogical leap it was a denial of the reality of the human experience.
“However, the organism killed needed to have personhood. In the story of the creation of Adam, he was a clay figurine until God blew into his nostrils the breath of life causing him to become a living being (Gen 2:7). This suggests that until the fetus is able to sustain life independent of the mother, it lacks personhood.”
“The organism” (Adam) needed to have life in order to be considered a living “person’ not the ability to sustain life independent of his mother which, unlike every other procreated “person”, he didn’t have. So the text actually shows that life is necessary to personhood not (alleged)independence from one’s mother. So you used the Bible to conclude what It did not say.
“This one story should convince you that the Bible in not an infallible book. You have to use good judgment in evaluating some of these stories”
Does an apparent contradiction of particulars of a story invalidate the story itself? So why is your “good judgment” better than the accuracy of the other 99% of a book that has stood the test of time for over 3000 years? My guess is that your infallibility, as well as mine, is probably far less reliable than the Bible’s. And since you already discount the integrity of the Bible how is it that you can use it’s authority to establish your case? Just say that you do not accept it as a reliable authority and we’ll discuss the issue on purely human terms.
But as you can see by so many of the comments leaving the Bible out of it is not a very attractive option even for those who find it’s Author confusing.
So many of these comments show exactly WHY we have a blind spot. The “its all good” freedom of conscience crowd, like some pastors I know, here in force to undermine every distinction of truth in the name of diversity and luv with out realizing that that because of their brand of luv and grace alone, what was once freedom of conscience has become the freedom from knowing what a conscience is.
The church has in essence been federalized, taken over by liberal minds who think that cultural diversity rids us of any reason to see things as true and false or right and wrong. (What could be more wrong that taking the life of the most innocent of us all.) Fact is both salvation AND freedom are now seen as a right when in fact they are a result. Distinctions of right and wrong really do exist. Borders and sovereignties too. Who we pledge our allegiance to matters. At the present time I certainly do not pledge mine to this land. I pledge it to God alone.
Personally? I do not think we have a blind spot I think we are willingly deceived by those that would make our church just like the rest that keep taking bigger and bigger steps into the abyss. The progression? Killing the unborn. (and turning marriage into a joke) Then women’s ordination. Then homosexual ordination. Then? What, recognition of NAMBLA?
Unless the Bible specifially addresses abortion and condemns, personal conscience, not religious fiat should be the guide. That is, unless one wishes to adopt the Catholic position of condemning many things, replacing personal conscience. Has the church preempted individual conscience? Where the Bible is silent…
T
The Bible teaches that “Thou shall not kill.” See Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17, Matthew 5:21 and Romans 13:9.
And then the Children of Israel slaughtered their neighbours. I think you’ll find it is actually thou shalt not murder.
What I’m reading is opinion not arguments. Arguments consist of the presentation of evidence to support your conclusions. Opinions are useless. If you want to convince someone you must give an argument.
Nic’s blog is not an argument, it is opinion. He asserts that abortion is the ultimate form child abuse. But he doesn’t present evidence to support that assertion. He has not established the personhood of a fetus, nor has he established that a fetus is a child. To assert that the pioneers were pro-lifers but that doesn’t support his assertion. He references James White in support of that conclusion. However, pioneers is plural, James is one. Did Ellen White make a statement about abortion? If so it needs to be cited. James’s view is an opinion just like Nic’s.
Nic then outlines the history of abortion in church and the thrashing of the Hippocratic Oath. This is history; it says nothing about abortion being the ultimate form of child abuse. This whole blog is opinion and is useless.
My generation is the first to see world population double in our lifetime. I was born in 1940, world population was 2 billion. Today it is over 7 billion. I may see it double again. Wilson was right to identify starvation and over population as a problem. Every second a child dies from starvation. Try going without food for a couple of weeks and experience what starvation is like. It would have been better for them to never have been born.
We are currently living in a period of massive animal and plant extinction caused primarily by over population. There are 7 billion people all trying to get part of the world’s energy and water resources. Worldwide we consume billions of barrels of oil each year. The carbon dioxide released has led to global warming. Glaciers worldwide are melting. Already around a million people have been displaced in Bangladesh because a very small rise in sea level. Deserts are growing because of lack of water; in some sections of Mohave desert in CA even the creosote bushes are dead. There are huge Islands of trash floating in our oceans. Trash produced by over population. Are you going to deny a 13 year old girl who has been raped an abortion? Or are you are you going to force her carry a nine month reminder of her ordeal.
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “Did Ellen White make a statement about abortion? If so it needs to be cited.”
I did cite evidence that Ellen White was against the harming of the unborn. She never used the word “abortion.” She used a much stronger term: “murder.”
“If the father would become acquainted with physical law, he might better understand his obligations and responsibilities. He would see that he had been guilty of almost murdering his children, by suffering so many burdens to come upon the mother, compelling her to labor beyond her strength before their birth, in order to obtain means to leave for them.” [14] 2SM 429-430]
If she condemned the almost murder of an unborn child, can we imagine what she would have said about the actual murder of unborn children?” Do you think that she would say: “I was against the almost murder of the unborn, but I am not against the actual murder?
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “Or are you going to force her to carry a nine month reminder of her ordeal.”
I was trained as a teacher. Teachers do not have the power to force anybody to remain pregnant. That power belongs to the government.
I have the testimony of a physician who reported to the police that one of his patients was determined to abort a well developed unborn baby. The woman was placed in custody until the birth of her baby.
Being pregnant against her wishes is a terrible ordeal, but taking the life of an innocent child is much worse. Pregnancy lasts no more than nine months. Killing is forever.
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “Are you going to deny a 13 year old girl who has been raped an abortion?”
I do not have the power to deny anything like that. The Bible condemns punishing the innocent for the sins of his/her parents.
You seem to advocate the killing of an innocent baby while letting the guilty rapist go free. This is a miscarriage of justice in my book!
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “Wilson was right to identify starvation and over population as a problem. Every second a child dies from starvation. Try going without food for a couple of weeks and experience what starvation is like. It would have been better for them to never have been born.”
Wilson was wrong. He wrote this in the richest country of the world; a country that was paying farmers to limit the production of food.
I know what it means being deprived of food by experience. I was born in a very poor family, and I remember the days when there was nothing in the pantry to eat except for a few green onions.
Besides, can you predict which unborn baby will die of starvation? Are you smart enough to play God?
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “[Nic] has not established the personhood of a fetus, nor has he established that a fetus is a child.”
Here is evidence that personhood applies to the unborn:
Legal Personhood
“Some have tried to claim that the unborn child was not a person “under the law”. And yet, there had been precedent for legal personhood for the unborn child established in various court rulings prior to Roe v. Wade.
1795 The unborn child had the right to inherit property. — Doe v. Clark
1798 Unborn children were “entitled to all the privileges of other persons.” — Thelluson v. Woodward
1927 “Non-viability of a fetus should not bar recovery (of damages).” The same case also held the unborn child was a “person” in the eyes of the law. — Torrigan v. Watertown News Co.
1964 An unborn child needed a blood transfusion for Rh factor. The mother refused on religious grounds. The court ruled her right to practice her religion was subordinate to her unborn child’s right to live. — Fitkin v. Anderson
1969 The unborn child could get social security benefits if the father died when the child was still in utero. — Wagner v. Gardner
1971 “The legal conclusions in Griswold as to the rights of individuals to determine without governmental interference whether or not to enter into the process of procreation cannot be extended to … those situations wherein a new life has begun…Once life has commenced, the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose on the state the duty of safeguarding it.” — Steinberg v. Rhoades
(From original compilations by Scientists for Life, The Handbook on Abortion, 1979 ed., and NCCB)”
More: http://masscitizensforlife.org/beginning-end-of-life/abortion/personhood-and-abortion/
“If the father would become acquainted with physical law, he might better understand his obligations and responsibilities. He would see that he had been guilty of almost murdering his children, by suffering so many burdens to come upon the mother, compelling her to labor beyond her strength before their birth, in order to obtain means to leave for them.” [14] 2SM 429-430]”
Apparently Ellen White’s opinion about the unborn’s life being greatly dependent on their mother’s health carries no more weight than Nic’s opinion on the same. Like the remnants of Judah’s past, the prophet is consulted about God’s will and then told that he was wrong. It’s deja vu all over again.
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “However, pioneers is plural, James is one.”
Here is the opinion of another Adventist pioneer:
Kellogg on Abortion
“The idea held by many that the destruction of foetal [sic] life is not a crime until after “quickening” has occurred is a gross and mischievous error. No change occurs in the developing human being at this period. The so-called period of “quickening” is simply the period at which the movements of the little one become sufficiently active and vigorous to attract the attention of the mother. Long before this, slight movements have been taking place, and from the very moment of conception, those processes have been in operation which result in the production of a fully developed human being from a mere jelly drop, a minute cell. As soon as this development begins, a new human being has come into existence–in embryo, it is true, but possessed of its own individuality, with its own future, its possibilities of joy, grief, success, failure, fame, and ignominy.”
“From this moment, it acquires the right to life, a right so sacred that in every land to violate it is to incur the penalty of death. How many murderers and murderesses have gone unpunished! None but God knows the full extent of this most heinous crime; but the Searcher of all hearts knows and remembers every one who has thus transgressed; and in the day of final reckoning, what will the verdict be? Murder? MURDER, child murder, the slaughter of the innocents more cruel than Herod, more cold-blooded than the midnight assassin, more criminal than the man who slays his enemy—the most unnatural, the most inhuman, the most revolting of all crimes against human life.”
J.H. Kellogg. Man the Masterpiece (Battle Creek, Michigan: Modern Medicine Publishing Co., 1894), 424-425. Also John Harvey Kellogg. “Infanticide and Abortion” Plain Facts for Old and/Electronic Text Center/Young/University of Virginia Library. Accessed from http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KelPlai.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=21&division=div1 on 25 Oct. 2006.
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “However, pioneers is plural, James is one.”
Here is the opinion of another Adventist pioneer:
J.N. Andrews
“A Few Words Concerning a Great Sin. – ONE of the most shocking, and yet one of the most prevalent sins of this generation, is the murder of unborn infants. Let those who think this a small sin, read Ps. cxxxix, 16. They will see that even the unborn
child is written in God’s book. And they may be well assumed that God will not pass unnoticed the murder of such children.” – J.N. Andrews – see the attached at page 184 –
http://docs.adventistarchives.org/docs/RH/RH18691130-V34-23__B.pdf#view=fit
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “This is history; it says nothing about abortion being the ultimate form of child abuse.”
Suppose a girl is given the following choice: Being pregnant for nine months or dismemberment by pulling
fatherdoc,
You wrote: “This is history; it says nothing about abortion being the ultimate form of child abuse.”
Which is worse: Being pregnant for nine months or being dismembered by pulling of arms, legs, and head off the torso. Which option would a girl choose if forced to decide between those two options?
Yawn, Same ol’same ol’. People were killed in the OT for having sex outside of marriage; consequently, there was essentially not an abortion issue. Within marriage people simply didn’t have abortions, with few exceptions.
Numbers chapter 5 is an exception. In cases of adultery, the woman’s reproductive organs were destroyed and any fetus she was carrying would have also been destroyed. This “abortion” was mandated by God and carried out by priests in the “trial by ordeal for suspected adultery.”
The real issue the Bible dealt with in the Mosaic code was sexual purity i.e., virginity. People have pretty much given up on that now so abortion is the issue but it’s the wrong issue.
The Bible not only allowed but required abortions in certain cases. The priests and God himself were involved in the termination of pregnancies brought about by adultery.
The priest ordered an ACCUSED wife of adultery to drink a potion of dust from the temple floor and water and if her “belly swelled” she was guilty.
This could not have determined that she was not pregnant by her husband. But only females were ever accused of adultery; men were polygamous and also had concubines and yet were never accused of adultery. It was a patriarchy!
“But only females were ever accused of adultery; men were polygamous and also had concubines and yet were never accused of adultery. It was a patriarchy!”
You obviously don’t know Scripture or the customs of the ancient world very well. 1) Polygamy WAS marriage, not the Playboy mansion. It came with all the moral and legal responsibilities of a monogamous marriage. A concubine was considered a “sub-wife”. It also came with the same legal and moral responsibilities. The children of each wife and concubine were considered full family members. And the idea that men were never accused of adultery is rather puzzling given the example of David and Bathsheba, and all the clear legal prohibitions found in the Mosaic law. The Bible as an accurate historical record makes this case with perfect clarity so there’s no reasonable need to believe otherwise.
Hansen,
You wrote: “This “abortion” was mandated by God and carried out by priests in the “trial by ordeal for suspected adultery.” …”
The “trial by ordeal” was part of the Mosaic Law. You need to remember what Jesus said about the Mosaic law: “Moses said … but I say …”
Jesus explained that certain laws given to old Israel were due to the hardness of their heart. You need to also distinguish between the sacredness of one of God’s Commandments written by God’s own finger from what Moses wrote.
The same God who gave the command not to murder ordered the Israelites to murder entire Canaanite tribes. Correctly translated: “Thou shall not murder.” All killing of human life is not murder; even criminal law recognizes several categories of homicide; and abortion is never considered murder unless special circumstances such as a spouse intentionally kills his pregnant wife to destroy her unborn fetus.
Elaine,
You wrote: “All killing of human life is not murder;”
Murder is defined as the intentional killing of an innocent human being. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, if the physician is trying to save both the baby and the mother, but the baby dies, this is not murder.
Nevertheless if the goal is to take the life of the unborn baby, then the murder term applies.
Some the commenters are happy showing their hatred for life.
Does that mean they hate the author of life too?
Jehovah orders genocide, punishes his buddies who fail to exactly obey. He has stood by as voyeur for eons while mankind slaughters itself. He has a huge future frying pan in store for those who don’t know or obey him. Why would he really be concerned about a few abortions? Vengeance is his game. Punishment was his method.
Christ seemed to present a different God. No genocide. No blood. No fires. No abortions. Healing was his game. Love was his method.
When I became a member of the SDA church it never crossed my mind to look into the churches stand on abortion or I would never have joined. I agree with Nic that abortion is murder.This should be a simple issue not complicated but clear. Read Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:16. GOD knew us before we were born.That says it all so we should not be killing the unborn no matter what changes we have to make.GOD help us.
I seldom agree with Elaine and do not embrace her basic spirituality. None the less, abortion is not murder. It is a sin, but not murder. It is a situation that in some cases requires us to make a moral decision between the lesser of two evils.
No one can define exactly when the process of procreation can be known as a human being. All attempts to do this is simply an exercise in futility. We celebrate a “birthday” when a baby is born, not when the woman is with child. It is at human being the first day? NO. It is absurd to claim it is.
Has the church developed an viable position on abortion? Maybe not. But to claim it is murder is neither biblical nor logical. It is not a human being until God defines an individual identity for the pre-born. You don’t know when God does this, and neither do I. I would speculate that it is a birth, as in the case of Adam, “God breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul.”
If it is murder. Every family that would have an abortion must be disfellowshiped for their decision. If their 13 year old daughter is raped, according to Nic, they have no option that would include abortion. His whole view is bogus, and as Elaine has stated, it is his private “hobby horse” that he has been riding for years. The church will never accept his position, nor should they.
“None the less, abortion is not murder. It is a sin, but not murder.”
If it is not murder then on what Biblical basis is it sin? If it is an innocent,perfectly healthy unborn human being that is being killed simply because it is unwanted by the mother then if it is not murder then what is it?
“It is a situation that in some cases requires us to make a moral decision between the lesser of two evils.”
In some cases is not in most cases. Do we then justify the most cases because the some cases are more difficult to navigate? And when did pregnancy become evil? That kind of reasoning just doesn’t make moral sense.
“No one can define exactly when the process of procreation can be known as a human being. All attempts to do this is simply an exercise in futility.”
Then God’s and SOP’s prenatal instructions are futile? When a sonogram shows the growing baby and the mother feels the movement inside her we still cannot define exactly when it is a human being? When Dr.s can successfully operate invitro to correct a deformity we are still in the dark concerning the humanity of what’s being operated on? Is there NO PLACE we can determine the inherent human value of an unborn? Were Jacob, John the Baptist, Jesus, and others simply examples of futility?
“We celebrate a “birthday” when a baby is born, not when the woman is with child.”
But why is that, have you ever thought about it? And most do celebrate the pregnancy of the woman don’t they? Job referred to the day his mother conceived as a bad day for a reason. In a world of sin conception does not always end up in birth. No need to count the chickens before… But conception always brings a certain joy to the wanting couple. It’s only when the baby is not wanted that this issue of birthday’s arises.
Bugs, Many here refer to “the church’s position” but I have never seen it officially declared. Have you?
Few women here have commented, and as usual men have very strong opinions as they have never been pregnant, suffered a miscarriage and actually given birth.
Additionally, many conflate the legal and bible positions, as they interpret them, and often the legal opinions rendered are 30 or more years earlier.
It’s a moot question as the church will never make a definitive statement nor will anyone or institution be disfellowshipped or penalized. I should have let them argue among themselves as really all most emit is B.S. (Bible Suppositions) with lots of hot air, incensed that women refuse to be controlled!
You are correct as to the lack, and probable impossibility, of a an official SDA position. I was aware, while a chaplain, of the abortions at Porter Hospital 40 years ago when it seemed to be a medical decision between doctor and patient and then facilitated by hospital facilities. Truth, I did and do feel it is a personal decision. My statement above was not intended as categorical, even though, rereading I can see how it appears that way and I would purge my reference if I could. I am neither for or against abortion on principle. Neither is my Catholic wife. Although when she found her daughter a few years ago opted for one, she had a shocked reaction when she realized that was her grandchild that was lost. As I understand it, the God of love doesn’t operate with edicts, unlike Superguy Jehovah. Abortion is one of many painful dilemmas of life where stones should be turned into kisses and tossed with love at those facing the nightmare of it.
Elaine wrote: “Many here refer to “the church’s position” but I have never seen it officially declared. Have you?”
Our “Guidelines on Abortion” were approved by the 1992 Autumn Council, which is authorized to make rulings between session of the church.
This church document should have been submitted to the world church in session. This was never done? Why? Are we afraid that the world church will void the document?
What was approved as something temporary, has become a permanent document which has guided the behavior of our Adventist hospitals.
This resulted in a sorry moral situations. We have added killing to the healing business our hospitals were founded for. Don’t tell this to Ellen White.
Bill,
You wrote: “None the less, abortion is not murder. It is a sin, but not murder.”
My dictionary defines murder as the intentional killing of an innocent human being; but if you prefer to label it as sin, I have no big problem.
But remember that if you expect to be saved from eternal death, you must confess your sin and repent. Repentance means a decision not to keep sinning. Jesus said to the adulterous woman: “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
Bill wrote: “It is a situation that in some cases requires us to make a moral decision between the lesser of two evils …”
Worse for the pregnant woman, her boyfriend, or for the baby? Is anything worse for the baby than being burned with chemicals or being dismembered?
Have you read the story of the girl with a missing arm? She was born alive after one of her arms was pulled from her body in a botched abortion, yet she was happy to be alive.
Bill wrote: “No one can define exactly when the process of procreation can be known as a human being.”
You seem to ignore what science has already established: that human life begins with conception. This is Biology 101!
Bill wrote: “It is not a human being until God defines an individual identity for the pre-born. You don’t know when God does this, and neither do I.”
This means that God expects us to do what is humanly impossible. He tells us not to kill yet will not tell us when the baby is a human being.
This is like a U.S.border agent being ordered to apprehend illegals crossing the border, but acknowledging that nobody knows where our U.S. border is located.
Bill wrote: “If it is murder. Every family that would have an abortion must be disfellowshiped for their decision …”
I have seen not a single disfellowshipping in my Loma Linda church in four decades.
Bill wrote: “The church will never accept his [Nic’s] position …”
You are probably right. The Adventist Church has recently publicly admitted that we are neutral concerning abortion. Perhaps we should be also neutral regarding rape, stealing, and the sexual abuse of children, which are lesser offenses in God’s sight.
If someone steals my car, I can buy another one. There is no replacement for a stolen life.
The Adventist Church will never accept Nic’s position primarily because, on this topic, it has listened to those who have had to think long and hard about this issue from a number of perspectives and particularly, because of the large group of physicians in the church, who in their professional practices realize how complex the issue is and how simplistic arguments such Nic advances just will not work in the real world.
Ervin Taylor wrote:
“The Adventist Church will never accept Nic’s position primarily because … of the large group of physicians in the church, who in their professional practices realize how complex the issue is and how simplistic arguments such Nic advances just will not work in the real world.”
The evidence seems to favor my position. The issue is not complex but rather simple: Let us get out of the abortion business. Our medical institutions were built with a healing mission in mind—not killing. The Catholic Church has demonstrated that my vision does work in the real world. They own many hospitals and they simply refrain from killing innocent unborn children.
The first wrong step our church took was to embrace the so called “therapeutic abortions.” This was followed by “elective abortions.” Why did we do this? Follow the money. We did this for profit’s sake. Our managers at out Castle Memorial Hospital in Hawaii feared that if we did not offer abortions on demand we would have to close our doors. The fear of the Lord was replaced with the fear of the world. Catholics did not follow our example and are still doing business.
The Catholic Church is wrong on many doctrinal issues. Rome is wrong on the state of the dead, for example, but it is right on the state of the living. They are convinced that honoring the Sixth Commandment is the right thing to do. The power that we used to label as the “beast of Revelation” has become the protector of the weak and powerless.
Rome worships the Lord on the wrong day of the week, but it does not dismember nor poison the most innocent members of the human race. We worship God on the correct day of the week, but during the rest of the week profit from the destruction of human life in addition to our healing business.
Let’s get out of the abortion business and concentrate on our original mission of healing. This is what Jesus did. Jesus told us that our eternal destiny would be determined by the way we treat “the least of these.” Read Matthew 25. We teach that the final test will hinge on the Sabbath issue. This may be true, but Jesus never said this. He rather told us that in the final judgment he will ask us how we treated those who are the most vulnerable.
Perhaps we need to correct our eschatology. Those who killed the Author of Life were right on the Sabbath issue but were wrong on the right to life of the innocent member of society. The Jews broke the commandment designed to protect human life, and rushed home to keep the Sabbath holy. We are repeating the Jewish mistake two thousands year ago. Let’s confess our sin and seek forgiveness!
“The Adventist Church will never accept Nic’s position primarily because, on this topic, it has listened to those who have had to think long and hard about this issue from a number of perspectives…
As opposed to those who have thought just as long and hard and have arrived at the same conclusions as Nic and millions of other deep thinkers have??
…particularly, because of the large group of physicians in the church, who in their professional practices realize how complex the issue is…
As if somehow physicians have a clearer view of human morality than others because they know better how the body operates?
…and how simplistic arguments such Nic advances just will not work in the real world.”
If they are so simplistic then how do we explain some of the deepest thinkers both within the Adventist world and without it arriving at the same conclusions? If they are so simplistic how is it that there are no responses to those factual, and logical arguments made by pro-life proponents. If it is so simplistic why do most pro-abortion arguments need to be half truths and out right lies? And what exactly won’t work in the real world, adoption? And why do so many women (and men) end up physically,morally, emotionally, and spiritually worse by adopting the arguments of those doctors who support abortion? The church may not adopt the traditional teachings of their forefathers on abortion but it will not be because the arguments in favor of killing the unborn are logically, morally, or spiritually compelling.
Not all abortions are sin. A 13 year old girl having an abortion because she is pregnant from a rape is not sin. To abort a fetus that is shown to have birth defects is not sin. There are probably many circumstances that we don’t know about that may lead women to deciding to abort that is not sin. I stand behind a woman’s right to make that choice. Those who condemn the doctor, the hospital, or the women exhibit a very good case of self-righteousness.
Fatherdoc, thank you for writing good sense! How many fathers here have ever had a daughter raped, or even pregnant at a very young age? Let’s hear from them.
No fathers in their right mind would want their daughters raped, pregnant at a young age, or killed during the pregnancy.
And in this case, the decision is based on a viable motive. Sin is defined by motive and action. To use abortion as a simple means of birth control would in most cases be a sin. To “abort” the process is not, ipso facto, sin, nor is it automatically murder. As I said, in some cases a person or family in council with a pastor, doctor and other qualified sources must make a decision as to what is the lesser of two evils. We live in a world of sin, and even Christians can not always make a choice that has no negative implications one way or the other.
Often times those who oppose abortion appeal to emmotionalism and the basic value of life to stir up others on issues they may have no personal experience with. So, in some cases, they need to sit down, shut up, and mind their own business. God will judge the motive of how and why some decisions were made that in an ideal situation would not be acceptable. While our church may not have defined a policy that is ideal, and maybe should make some alterations in the policy, there is no way they can simply define abortion as murder and then act on this to discipline and deal with every situation that can and/or will happen in the church community.
Bill, you say: ” As I said, in some cases a person or family in council with a pastor, doctor and other qualified sources must make a decision as to what is the lesser of two evils.” So why would you be in favor of Mary having the right to murder baby Jesus?
“Often times those who oppose abortion appeal to emmotionalism and the basic value of life to stir up others on issues they may have no personal experience with.”
Yet, you are appealing to the exact same emotionalism when citing the personal experience of the pregnant woman. You are suggesting that emotions are to be the judge of life and death circumstances. You clearly put the value of the unborn child in the realm of the hypothetic and subjective. In doing so you advocate for Cain’s response to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” As you well know, God has given to mankind the responsibility for the care and keeping of his fellow human beings. He particularly demands the protection of His property which is most susceptible to sinful abuses. None of our Adventist forefathers would have advocated that circumstances of pregnancy should be the determinate of the value of the human life developing within the mother. Such a determination would nullify any objective moral prenatal obligations counseled by our prophet and the validated by the current scientific community.
“So, in some cases, they need to sit down, shut up, and mind their own business.”
In some cases? What about the 97% of the rest of them? What do we do about those? You take great liberties with your response to this issue. Adventist leaders before the 1970’s were openly and unanimously advocating the exact same conclusions that Nic is presenting here. They even wrote these things in the official SDA mouthpiece. The prophet’s husband and founder of this movement equated the importance of the anti-abortion teaching as being equal in importance with his wife’s contributions. Not once did Ellen White demand that they sit down and shut up. Advocating for every man doing what is right in their own eyes has very serious eternal consequences. We should be adamantly discussing and figuring out God’s will on this practice not, as many are more comfortable doing, remaining silent.
Bill Sorensen wrote: “As I said, in some cases a person or family in council with a pastor, doctor and other qualified sources must make a decision as to what is the lesser of two evils.”
I believe that it is rather hard to find good cases where killing an innocent human being is the “lesser of two evils.” Give me some concrete examples!
I grant that if the life of the mother hangs in the balance, then allowing the baby to die might be the lesser of two evils. A good example might be an ectopic pregnancy, although there have been cases where the baby was saved even under those circumstances.
My church considers that if the unborn baby is the result of rape, a well formed baby can be killed. I consider this morally wrong. Why should we impose the death penalty on the innocent? We do not kill the rapist, do we?
My church justifies abortion if the woman’s health is affected by the unwanted pregnancy. A woman claims that her mental health is the result of her pregnancy, and bingo, we impose the death penalty on the baby. Mental depression is temporary, while death is permanent.
Fatherdoc wrote: “A 13 year old girl having an abortion because she is pregnant from a rape is not sin. To abort a fetus that is shown to have birth defects is not sin.”
The 13-year-old girl who is raped has a better option: give the baby for adoption. Sin is defined in the Bible as refusing to choose the better option to the detriment of the innocent. Society sins by punishing the unborn baby for the sin of the baby’s father. Common sense tells me that punishing the innocent is a travesty of justice. We let the rapist go free and kill the most innocent victim.
Your theory is an insult to all the handicapped members of society.
“Not all abortions are sin.”
Which ones are?
Abortion is the height of how low women and society as a whole have sunk. This of course by courtesy of feminism which has left society devoid of a sense of shame. By justifying the killing of the unborn through reclassifying the developing human offspring as non-human they stick their heads further in the ground and make believe that abortion is a virtuous exercise and in so doing provide ample evidence that they have lost their sense of reason which to me is the end result of secularisation and its evil daughter, the wicked queen of the West: feminism.
I was curious of how many comments we would get with this guest editorial. Obviously, this is something about which many individuals have very emotionally saturated opinions. It seems to me that only those individuals who can get pregnant have a standing to express a meaningful opinion about this topic. I’m particularly interested in the views of Mr. Hammond who, by definition, has no standing, but nevertheless is going to tell us about “how low women . . . have sunk . . . and the “evil daughter, the wicked queen of the West: feminism.” I would rather that he be concerned about the evils of “maleism.” That would make just as much sense.
Like those who have standing to comment at Adventist Today but are ex-Advnetists?
Erwin Taylor wrote:
“It seems to me that only those individuals who can get pregnant have a standing to express a meaningful opinion about this topic.”
Fine, let’s then apply your policy retroactively: If we do this, the decision to legalize abortion will be void because the nine Justices of the Court back in 1973 were all male, and it will void your opinion as well, because you can’t get pregnant either.
It appears that Nic does not understand or appreciate the meaning of the word “standing.”
“It seems to me that only those individuals who can get pregnant have a standing to express a meaningful opinion about this topic.”
Huh? Is that a serious conclusion or is your tongue in your cheek? I’ve heard it many times before but have a hard time believing anyone without an agenda could postulate such a thoughtless statement. Besides, every poll taken on the subject shows that women are far more likely to be against abortion then men. So, if true, that would render the decision in favor of Nic’s “opinion”, discussion over!! Tell us you’re kidding!
“I was curious of how many comments we would get with this guest editorial.”
By the way, thank you for letting us tour the haunted house of Adventism.
I have often heard how many of those who sit on the fence or on the pro side will say how we should show love to those committing abortion and understand what they’re going through and how many babies have you adopted blah blah blah fishpaste. However, Dr. Samojluk has raised an important point in calling abortion the ultimate form of child abuse.
Those who sexually abuse children, even if they claim they are ‘oriented’ this way or ‘born’ this way are literally (and justifiably so) treated as scum of the earth. They are listed on the sex offender list as child abusers for life and are ostracised in communities, churches and society in general. In spite of the fact that there are such huge consequences for such perverted behaviour these sickos are found in their numbers out there. This is evident by the sheer numbers that feast on the child porn industry.
Yet another category of child abuse which is just as horrific, if not worse, has not only the legal backing of the govshop but is generally found to be acceptable and considered a societal norm. Even though it reeks of bloodthirstiness, spurred on by greed and selfishness, and is in most cases premeditated, abortion is not framed within the child abuse parameters and is totally excluded from even being remotely associated with any form of child abuse. There is a major disconnect here. Then they go and call themselves a civilised society. Will the chickens come home to roost? Will the blood – and torn limbs – of these unwanted and hated abortion bucket non-human classified waste bi-products of sexual gratification be avenged some day? Why, yes, of course.
Trevor: “…how many babies have you adopted blah blah blah fishpaste.”
The fact you say ‘blah, blah, blah’ highlights why this problem will continue.
I agree we should try and prevent abortions. However, unless we address the cause, not simply the symptom, then it will continue – even as illegal backyard abortions.
Unless young pregnant woman feel they have another option other than abortion, all this talk by you and Nic means squat.
Steve Ferguson wrote: “Unless young pregnant woman feel they have another option other than abortion, all this talk by you and Nic means squat.”
Have you ever heard about the adoption option? Have you ever explored the long list of ministries that offer assistance to girls faced with unwanted pregnancies?
A few days ago I received a valentine card from the “Save the Storks” organization. They have nine vans equipped with sonograms offering their free services to pregnant women. They park their vans close to abortion clinics and have so far helped hundreds of women keep their babies or else offer them for adoption.
“I agree we should try and prevent abortions…
That’s good Steve, what are you doing to help stop the practice?
…However, unless we address the cause, not simply the symptom, then it will continue – even as illegal backyard abortions.”
Addressing the cause is still no guarantee that it will end the evil. In a society which uses the term “choice” to mean the freedom to do evil what exactly do you think will be an effective cure for the cause? If consensual sex outside of marriage, and abortion are both pictured as innocent and noble human “rights” then what is your plan of attack. And what then do we do with those who will continue to ignore the practical protections against pregnancy?
“be avenged some day”? I pray for that day to come soon, as it seems that no one is going to do what it takes to bring justice for 53,000,000 babies (just in America in 42 years).
Analyzing human behavior and judging people through the predetermined filter of sin, wretchedness and evil motives is the equivalent of dumpster diving for the self-righteous. Men, never in need of abortion, climb out of the dumpster with a renewed smelly sense of condemnation, hop on high horses and proclaim women who are subject to the possibility to be evil, low, horrid feminists, sinful, without morals.
Accepting the stories of Christ as accurate, he was accosted by the moral dumpster divers of his time. He refused to entertain them. One example, He told them if their record was clean they could then toss some garbage (stones) at a prostitute. It wasn’t and they didn’t.
Half the human race isn’t abortable. The other half who are can’t be in an abortable condition without participation of the parties of the first part. There is no righteousness, then or now. As I stated above: Abortion is one of many painful dilemmas of life where stones should be turned into kisses and tossed with love at those facing the nightmare of it.
Bugs very much agree. Your pointing to the woman at the well makes me think…
There is no parallel between the woman at the well with abortion. To justify blatant sin and rebellion on the same level as some negotiable issues such as abortion and Sabbath keeping show a lack of spiritual discernment. Neither is the Mary caught in adultery comparable to abortion. We seem to have a real problem defining with may be negotiable as something out side the norm, with something that is non-negotiable like murder or adultery.
No the parallel for me is that how we respond to the pregnant woman. Everone like Nic and you are so focused on the sympton (i.e. the abortion) rather than the cause (i.e. why the woman would want to have an abortion). If you could outright outlaw abortion tomorrow, women would still be having ‘back-yard’ abortions, because the underlying problem (i.e. woman wanting to have abortions)would not be addressed.
See my comment belong about Mississippi.
Steve Ferguson wrote: “If you could outright outlaw abortion tomorrow, women would still be having ‘back-yard’ abortions,”
Yes, and if we outlaw rape, burglary, and the sexual abuse of little children, criminals will still rape, steal, and engage in sexual abuse of children. Should we then legalize rape and crime?
Bugs/Larry Boshell wrote: “One example, He told them if their record was clean they could then toss some garbage (stones) at a prostitute. It wasn’t and they didn’t.”
Do not forget what Jesus said to the adulterous woman: “Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more.”
What my church is telling women who are planning to kill their unborn babies is: “Neither do I condemn you. You have not done wrong!” You have chosen the less harmful alternative. “
God used four words in dealing with the right to life issue. Those who drafted our Adventist “Guidelines on Abortion” utilized 1314 words to redefine and void what the Lord inscribed on tablets of stone with his own finger. We must repent of this great sin and ask for forgiveness.
Women faced with the abortion alternative should remember that they have the adoption option. The Lord is mighty to save today as he was before.
“Men, never in need of abortion, climb out of the dumpster with a renewed smelly sense of condemnation, hop on high horses and proclaim women who are subject to the possibility to be evil, low, horrid feminists, sinful, without morals.”
I suppose, in the absence of moral and logical argument it is necessary to stand in condemnation and ridicule of those with whom you disagree in order to avoid the emptiness of your arguments. You aren’t a champion of women’s dignity by attempting to blame men for the evils they allegedly heap on women while ignoring the fact that women are far more likely to be in the group of those who condemn the practice you are defending. Which dumpster do you see them coming out of? Destroying the life of unborn human beings is not a gender exclusive question. Both men and women share in it’s guilt and both men and women work for it’s extinction.
I read somewhere that Mississippi has the strictest antiabortion laws. However, it also provides the least support to young single mothers who don’t have an abortion. Anything odd at that?
I assume of course Nic and all those fervently opposed to abortion have adopted children, both from the US and overseas, to put their ‘money where their mouths are’? Otherwise, are they any different from those willing to stone the woman caught in adultery?
I think using abortion for birth control is sin. But I would call the issue of abortion as ‘complicated’. What if the baby is terminated because it has a serious genetic or developmental problem? What about rape? Even the Bible texts such as Ex 21, demonstrate the issue is complicated from a biblical perspective. I would therefore be loathe to judge someone too harshly.
Steve, why would you support the right of Mary to murder baby Jesus?
Steve Ferguson wrote: “I assume of course Nic and all those fervently opposed to abortion have adopted children, both from the US and overseas, …”
Nic is 83 years old and would not qualify as a potential adoptive parent. Besides, Nic & his wife raised three children and helped raise several grandchildren.
Nic has dedicated half of his life to convince the Adventist church to get out of the business of killing children. Killing should never be an integral part of healing. Our medical institutions were founded to alleviate pain and suffering—not to destroy life.
Nevertheless, close family members of Nic’s family have spent a fortune for the privilege of adopting three children, and they had to go to the other side of the world for the chance of doing this.
If Nic had chosen to adopt unwanted children, he would not have been able to devote his life to share his views about the sacredness of human life.
There are plenty of childless couples eager to adopt. The fact that so many go to other countries for the chance of securing adoptable children is evidence that we should stop killing unwanted babies.
“I think using abortion for birth control is sin.”
But that represents 98% of all abortions. Yet the Adventist church does not even admit that it is a sin. If one argues for the legitimacy (“choice”, remember?) of all abortions based on the 2% of the “complicated” cases then one de facto agrees that the other 98% is not that evil either. Why don’t you work for the eradication of the 98% and defend the 2% rather than simply finding reasons to justify abortion as a whole?
The point Dr Samojluk is making here is that abortion is the ultimate form of child abuse. That is the core premise of the blog. Just because there are back street abortions, back street child abuse, or back street murders, it doesn’t warrant the legalisation of it, or special sympathy towards perpetrators. The ‘back street’ excuse for condoning, turning a blind eye or making something legal as a result of ‘back street’ groupthink is further evidence of the demise of society due to secularism which leads to a demise of sound resoning – or should I say ‘back street’ reasoning.
Trevor Hammond wrote: “Just because there are back street abortions, back street child abuse, or back street murders, it doesn’t warrant the legalization of it, or special sympathy towards perpetrators.”
I fully agree with your comments. I would like to add that the fact that in a few years following the legalization of abortion in the U.S., the number of abortions increased exponentially to a million and a half. Legalizing criminal behavior does not diminish crime—it tends to increase its frequency.
If legalizing the killing of innocent human beings were beneficial to society, then we might as well legalize rape, burglary, larceny, and the sexual abuse of children.
“The ‘back street’ excuse for condoning, turning a blind eye or making something legal as a result of ‘back street’ groupthink is further evidence of the demise of society due to secularism which leads to a demise of sound resoning – or should I say ‘back street’ reasoning.”
It’s not back street reasoning it’s reasoning based on a lie. The back alley abortion claims made for decades by abortion advocates have long ago been exposed for the lies that they really are. If I remember correctly the claims of hundreds or thousands of deaths were purposely exaggerated to gain public sympathy. The actual number of back alley abortion deaths in the year before Roe v.Wade was somewhere around 29 or so. Maybe 56, I can’t remember, it’s been awhile. But what goes unreported by the press is the number of deaths that occur every year in legal (or not) abortion clinics.
Bugs, you claim to be a chaplain, and yet diss God as presented in the Old Testament. Were you not aware that the Rock that led Israel thru the wilderness, and destroyed the first-born of the Egyptians (and all the ante-diluvians) etc. was the same God that became flesh in a manger in Bethlehem?
Yes earlysda, I’ve been “dissing” Superguy for more than forty years. Doesn’t seem to bother him too much. I think he might just be a figment of the imagination. Christ seemed to have a different version in mind. I like his better. He seems much more sympathetic to the human condition, part of which, abortion, is under discussion here. He gave this new commandment: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Kind of eliminates the dumpster diving of holy men seeking judgmental trash to dump over the heads of hapless humans transgressors of the feminine kind. Even if abortion is properly or improperly judged to be child abuse. (I maintain the impregnator is just as guilty if guilt is the issue).
The religious rush to be judge, jury, and character assassinator in the name of maintaining morality and its theoretical high ground has no basis in the teachings of Christ. It is idolatry, a person playing the role of a god deciding what is appropriate for others while having never “walked in their shoes.”
Rules, directives, regulations, standards, are a necessary part of the human condition. A mean spirit, hatred, judgmentalism, are unnecessary overlays of misery that achieve nothing but to advertise the imagined self-holiness of the applicators.
Bugs/Larry Boshell wrote: “I maintain the impregnator is just as guilty if guilt is the issue”
I agree! So why does society let the rapist live and impose the death penalty of the innocent victim—the unborn baby?
Bugs, were you really a SDA chaplain, and holding to the belief that God as depicted in the Old Testament: “I think he might just be a figment of the imagination.”???
Bugs/Larry Boshell wrote: “He gave this new commandment: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Kind of eliminates the dumpster diving of holy men seeking judgmental trash to dump over the heads of hapless humans transgressors of the feminine kind.”
If you read with care what I have written, you will discover that my emphasis is on the sins of the church—not so much the sins of women.
I joined a pro-life Adventist Church seven decades ago. Now I am a member of a church that four decades ago embraced the pro-choice/pro-abortion crowd and allowed our own medical institutions to profit from killing with impunity in addition to healing. Should I remain silent?
My church is guilty of two sins: The so called therapeutic and elective abortions. My church has justified lifestyle over the value of life.
Thousands of innocent unborn babies were sacrificed for the sake of profit, and our La Sierra University did honor the man who perfected the most successful killing machine in the history of abortion, a former owner of over twenty abortion clinics in California.
My church needs to repent of these two great sins before the Lord vomits us as his chosen Remnant from his mouth.
How can I sing the praises of what our leaders have done when I see our mission compromised by our departure from the right path?
Perhaps we need to read the messages of the biblical prophets and the message of Jesus Christ who condemned the leaders of his generation in Matthew 23.
To earlysda, you said, “ Your attempt to relegate the living human inside its mother before it’s born to something less than “human” is reprehensible. Maybe you would have been happy for Mary to abort her first baby?” I merely pointed out that Exod. 21:22 shows a different status for the miscarriage or aborted fetus than for the mother. I made no statement about the fetus being human. Mary has no relationship to this text. Besides, Mary was told by a angel that she was going to conceive.
Nic, you are trying real hard to make Exod. 21:22 say something it does not. According to you rather than a miscarriage it should read a pre-mature birth. Whether it is a miscarriage or a pre-mature birth that lives, depends upon the time at which the event occurs. Studies show that 85 percent of fetus’s born 20 weeks (5 months) after fertilization die within 12 hours even with modern technology and medical advances. The University of California-San Francisco Medical center claims that no fetus’s born earlier than 21 weeks have survived. Considering the time at which Exodus was written miscarriage is the correct rendering of the text, the fetus dies, the mother lives.
“Nic, you are trying real hard to make Exod. 21:22 say something it does not.”
And you, doc, continue to ignore what the text clearly conveys. The mother is accidentally struck causing (in your interpretation) the mother to lose her baby. In this case the father has the right to demand compensation for the child’s loss. Therefore Scripture puts an inherent value on the unborn child and with it imposes a criminal penalty for even the ACCIDENTAL death.You are attempting to twist the text to mean that because the unborn child was a different category than a “person” it has no inherent value and can be intentionally killed without legal repercussions. Do you want to adjust your position on what the bible teaches about the value of the unborn?
fatherdoc wrote: “Nic, you are trying real hard to make Exod. 21:22 say something it does not. According to you rather than a miscarriage it should read a pre-mature birth.”
Nic did not discover this. Read the list of Bible translators who have chosen this rendering of the biblical text:
NJK said: “In defense of the KJV, the word “mischief” does not mean what some might have supposed.”
I say: The Bible predicted that knowledge would be increased. This prediction very likely includes the knowledge of the Bible as well. If his is true, then it might be significant the fact that many modern scholars render said biblical passage using the “premature birth” as a reasonable option, which would imply that the harm refers to the baby instead of the mother, or perhaps to both.
New International Version (©1984)
“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.
New Living Translation (©2007)
“Now suppose two men are fighting, and in the process they accidentally strike a pregnant woman so she gives birth prematurely. If no further injury results, the man who struck the woman must pay the amount of compensation the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve.
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
“If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.
GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
“This is what you must do whenever men fight and injure a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely. If there are no other injuries, the offender must pay whatever fine the court allows the woman’s husband to demand.
Nevertheless, if you prefer the other alternative, you still have a big problem, because Jesus told us that the Mosaic Law with its many rules and regulations was given due to the hardness of their hearts.
Nic, my criticism of your blog is valid. From the beginning to end it is your opinion. None of the assertions made were supported by evidence. What alleged evidence you did present were presented after the fact. The so called position of the pioneers does not represent a church decision. The three pioneers views are their views or opinion only, however, they represent 19th century thinking. The Ellen White quote that you cite is the first piece of viable evidence you present, however, it is not really related to this debate. “If the father would become acquainted with physical law, he might better understand his obligations and responsibilities. He would see that he had been guilty of almost murdering his children, by suffering so many burdens to come upon the mother, compelling her to labor beyond her strength before their birth, in order to obtain means to leave for them.” [14] 2SM 429-430] This quote is about a husband who gets his wife pregnant and forces to labor while beyond her strength. This is certiantly good advice to couples planning a family. However, Ellen White was also a product of the 19th century. Many statements in her writings represent common views at that time period, age of the earth, cause of volcanios, and amalgamation are just a few.
You need to answer the question a couple days back about the in utero nature of Jesus Christ. Do you believe Jesus was a nonperson, in utero? Wow! That is innovative Christology.
fatherdoc wrote: “Nic, my criticism of your blog is valid. From the beginning to end it is your opinion.”
Did you forget that I listed 13 references at the end of my blog? Did you check those out? Did you read the material contained in my two books? They contain around one thousand references, and the majority of them were harvested from Adventist publications.
How can you say that what I present is merely my opinion when in fact it is solidly based on what hundreds of other Adventists have written?
References
[1] http://acestoohigh.com/2013/01/07/video-end-it-now-understanding-and-preventing-child-abuse/
[2] http://adventlife.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/what-did-our-adventist-pioneers-say-about-abortion-by-nic-samojluk/
[3] James White, editor. Solemn Appeal (Battle Creek, Michigan: Stem Press, 1870), 100.
[4] http://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1991/August/abortion-history-of-adventist-guidelines
[5] http://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1991/August/abortion-history-of-adventist-guidelines
[6] Winslow, Gerald R. “Abortion Policies in Adventist Hospitals.” Spectrum 19/4 (May 1989): 47-50.
[7] http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/guidelines/main-guide1.html
[8] http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html
[9] http://www.susqneuro.com/publications/oaths/index.html#The
[10] http://www.llu.edu/pages/faculty/directory/faculty.html?uid=IBlomquist
[11]http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=&keyWords=Nic+Samojluk&sitesearch=lulu.com&q=&x=18&y=15
[12] http://www.lulu.com/shop/nic-samojluk/murder-in-paradise/paperback/product-21623695.html
[13] http://adventlife.wordpress.com.
William, the zygote of Jesus was fully 100% divine and at the same time it was also fully100% human. This deals with the incarnation of Christ which is beyond human understanding. It was impossible for the fetus of Christ to abort. He was the promised Messiah and could not die until his time, the middle of the week as prophesied by Dan. However, because he was 100 % human He developed from zygote to an embryo to fetus and was born as baby just like any other human being. Since in the thinking of the Jews a fetus had a lower status than a born baby, Jesus’s fetus also had a lower status. To elevate the fetus of Christ to a higher level than the rest of human fetuses makes him superhuman, which is a violation of the incarnation doctrine.
So you think Jesus in utero was low status… Just like all the other low status zygotes and fetuses.
As to impossibilities and the Messiah; if Messiah is wholly man (as you say, 100% human) then he shared 100% of the potentiality of human life. If, it is impossible for the fetus of Christ to abort: Then he was not 100% human.
Messiah would not fail in His redemptive work. You rob the sacrifice of its content to say, “He could not fail” Infinite risk attends the incarnation.
fatherdoc wrote: “It was impossible for the fetus of Christ to abort.”
Some years ago I had the privilege of debating by email a very smart Adventist physician, trained by our LLU .
The exchange of views lasted several months. I pressed him on what would he do in the event Mary, the mother of Jesus, had requested an abortion. At one point of the dialogue, he said: “I would not have hesitated a minute.”
I concluded from this that had Mary been a patient at our Adventist hospitals, she might have been offered the abortion alternative; which reminds me of the following anecdote:
A man took his wife to our Washington Adventist Hospital some years ago, and the first question the gynecologist asked was: “Do you want to keep thee baby?”
The man stood up and said to his wife: “Honey, I think that we are in the wrong hospital! Let’s go.” Is this the kind of Christian testimony we are giving to non-Adventists?
Just another thought. The Magi of Matt. or the shepherds of Luke came to celebrate Christ’s birth not his conception. He achieved personhood at his birth else why wasn’t it celebrated earlier?
do you mean, like from the foundation of the world?
and also:
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. [42] In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! [43] But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? [44] As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. [45] Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”
fatherdoc wrote: “The Magi of Matt. or the shepherds of Luke came to celebrate Christ’s birth not his conception. He achieved personhood at his birth else why wasn’t it celebrated earlier?”
You celebrate the completion of a project. This does not mean that you are free to destroy something someone is building with impunity.
The Bible attributes the creation of human life in the womb to God. We have no permission to destroy what the Lord is creating.
If I bring a wrecking machine and destroy an unfinished building, I go to jail. Much less if there is a sign posted that reads: “NO TRESPASSING.”
The two Gospels reporting the miraculous conception were written more than a century later. At the time of his birth there is no contemporary account of this conception whatsoever. It was Matthew and Luke’s account, varying in nearly every detail, that began this mythic account.
Nor is there a single secular historian recording a word about King Herod’s order to kill all the first born; Philo and Josephus never mentioned it. It was written to compare the Israelites flight from Egypt that the Gospel writer wrote of the family leaving for Egypt after the birth. While other Gospels record his taken to the temple in Jerusalem on the 8th day according to the Law.
Hagiographic accounts postdating an even by more than 60 years.
Sorry Elaine, they can’t hear you in the sound proof chamber of Adventism. They are content to fawn over the convenient myth, unknown by Paul, created, nurtured, and, harbored by that evil papacy. So while they are occupied by no-limit abortion discussion, I want to throw my pregnant brain into the mix.
Their speculations are too limited. What if Mary had experienced a natural abortion? There wouldn’t have been stigma of imposition, but no record, either. Couldn’t her body have rejected a strange injection of DNA? And whose DNA was it? Josephs? Catholic theologians say no. It had to come from somewhere and someone? The human part anyway? Or what if the kid had been still born? Would that qualify as abortion? Could there have been some other virgin birth that did fail in this or some other means? If the baby had been naturally aborted for some medical reason, wouldn’t the remains have had eternal substance with a disposal problem? Did she have an anti-abortion attendant angel to keep her from falling off the donkey or otherwise harming the fetus? And what if Mary had died in her sixth month, wouldn’t that have been an abortion of eternal damage?
OK, I have bastardized a perfectly good discussion of an emotional, important topic. I will do the “right” thing and blame it on others who have contributed on this forum, who have opened the door and let me sneak in while they engaged in their wild clinical and argumentative musings.
“The two Gospels reporting the miraculous conception were written more than a century later. At the time of his birth there is no contemporary account of this conception whatsoever. It was Matthew and Luke’s account, varying in nearly every detail, that began this mythic account.”
But your critique of the account comes twenty one centuries after the mythical event. Do you have better sources of His beginnings? Were His closest followers a bunch of liars, wacko’s, and delusional freaks? Did someone get the “real” story right? But since it appears you are a Biblical skeptic (or worse) why do you even accept that Jesus was a real person and not also a mythical character created by a bunch of Jim Jones prototypes? And why the need to appeal to what the Bible says on any subject except as it benefits your health and welfare? It is to you unreliable and therefore irrelevant and any argument on any subject with a Bible believer becomes an argument with the Bible. And if the Bible is unreliable on moral issues then arguing a moral issue becomes an exercise in subjective futility as your authority in such matters is no more, no less valid than anyone else’s.
Doug, your equivalency argument is as full of holes as Swiss cheese. A century delay in information compilation about Christ in that time is not the same, equivalent, in any way as the time period covered by Elaine’s postulate in our time. It’s a cheap trick. Because it is specious, the rest of your argument crumbles. Just proclaim your belief in the accuracy of the Biblical record and the tradition of the virgin birth and leave it at that. For that you don’t need facts, history, or verification. Faith is fine. Faulty logic is not.
“Doug, your equivalency argument is as full of holes as Swiss cheese.”
Even if you were right at least it is undeniable that even with the holes there is still plenty of swiss cheese to eat. Elaine’s version leaves only Velveeta at best. If the gospels are all a bunch of lies as she suggests, then it becomes entirely probable that the whole Jesus story never happened. And all of Christianity with all of it’s contributions to moral stability is little more than an imposition on human reality, including the right to kill the unborn.
Elaine,
If the scripture is not our agreed authority, how can we have a discussion about what it means?
Do you want us to dismiss the miraculous conception as unauthoritative?
Are you on a quest for the historical Jesus? Or are you discussing what the bible says about human life in utero?
There is a world of difference between the actual historical Jesus and the biblical account. It all depends on where one searches. Believe the Bible for your faith; believe the many historians for evidence.
“There is a world of difference between the actual historical Jesus and the biblical account.”
An “actual’ historical Jesus would need firsthand documentation of His existence and ensuing life. Outside of the “eyewitness” accounts of the gospels what eyewitness documentation counters the gospel accounts?
“It all depends on where one searches. Believe the Bible for your faith; believe the many historians for evidence.”
But the Bible writers were rendering a historical account of the facts. So your either or options is not entirely accurate. You should have written, “Believe the Bible historians for your evidence or believe the non-bible historian for evidence, and then select which you will place your faith in.”
I’m wondering, Elaine, where you got your theological degree?
Who taught you the dating of the gospels? You need to get your tuition back. Quickly.
That Matthew and Luke incorporate and edit to their intended audience the emphases they give is clear. Luke is an ideal example, younger traveler with Paul, and the Luke-Acts two-book series was certainly written and present when the minim were enacted by the rabbis in Yavneh (Jamnia).
Matthew uses the Roman-oriented Mark, not like Luke to appeal to the Greeks (where Jesus is the ideal long-awaited Philosopher-King who does wonderful Aesop fables but is NOT thrown off a cliff by his hometown folks) and teaches and teaches and teaches….
Rather Matthew appeals to the Jamnia-Yavneh crowd one last time to convince them that no human could have contrived to fulfill so many prophecies in a single life. No mortal has that much control over people and events around him. The earliest fathers tell us that this gospel existed first in Hebrew, which is generally presumed to be Aramaic.
And the majority date is somewhere in the 90s, not long after Luke. (And let us not forget that along with incorporating all of Mark, they also use another no-longer-existing source, “Q” in their unique ways.
That the parentage of Jesus was a major issue in His lifetime was witnessed by the last of the Gospels, John. The “Jews” (now as a group simply the rejecters of truth) say “WE have Abraham as our father” implying Christ did not.
Bringing up His true Father was not a wise move. His answer so infuriated them they cry more rudely “WE were not born of fornication” which in one way is better, because it implies that perhaps Jesus’ human father (as they supposed) was in fact a JEW.
The infancy narratives contain details that are not in conflict. Rather, together they make a nice complete narrative, but the details chosen go to the point of the intended audience: to the Greeks a philosopher-king must by nature be a royal figure but one who from birth eschewed wealth. Everything in Luke goes to emphasis on poverty.
In Matthew everything goes to royalty, descent from David, deity, recognition by others of the divine nature of the Child, etc.
John is assumed to be in its final product the last work of the Ephesian bishops (the constant “we” of that gospel) who felt it necessary to intrude on their polished and dramatic ending by adding a denouement about the death of John, how the rumor got started that he was never to die, what Jesus actually said about that, the circumstances etc. If as the majority of scholarship — correctly in my view — takes this final edition to be AFTER the Revelation (so the earliest fathers) then John is slightly post AD 100.
No gospels a hundred years later except in the imagination of the far far left wing of Biblical scholarship. And I’m not surprised to see you to glom onto what is largely wishful thinking.
I should add that the Gospel of John makes it clear (as was already present in the pronouncements from the Jamnia sessions) that contemporary Jews presumed that Jesus was in fact a Jew, and was the son of Joseph and Mary (Jn 6:42).
The insult regarding “fornication” therefore was to suggest that there was some issue about the birth of Jesus. It is not an accident that this came up precisely in the context of Jesus claiming God as his Father in a unique way.
John does not even bother with the pre-existing infancy narratives of Luke, then Matthew. He doubtless considered them sufficient on that topic. What he does emphasize is that though the Logos was “divine/deity” he “became flesh and tabernacle among us.”
Being the “unique” Son (Jn 3:16) in the bosom of the Father, he alone could make God known. This is so central to John’s thrust that to stop with questions about parentage and birth would simply lessen its impact.
John, it is clear that your scholarship, wisdom, analysis, if made public, would end once and for all the search for the historical Jesus, end these endless arguments over his deity, parenthood, mission and teachings. And the four Gospels would be exactly harmonized, authorship established. The mountains of left wing scholarship books could be publically burned without resistance, and we could get back to discussing important stuff like the mark of the beast and the three angels messages. When is your book going to be available? Let me help you with a title: ” A Brief Perfect Answer To Every Christian Question.” Yes, I am being caustic, here. That is in response to how I see you treating respondents as dumbbells in this and other replies. If I am wrong, show me how, and accept my apologies in advance.
“Yes, I am being caustic, here. That is in response to how I see you treating respondents as dumbbells in this and other replies”
John replied to inaccurate “facts” with legitimate clarifying alternatives. Why is that any more condescending then Elaine’s appeal to her version of the historical “facts”? The question is, whose facts are really facts? No need to attempt to attack one’s approach when the documented facts can be the judge.
My “theological” degree is from the same school you received yours.
All my studies in early Christian history on which I wrote my master’s thesis is footnoted on many pages including the books in my home, of which there are at least three dozen on that subject. Other than that, I admit complete ignorance on the subject.
But thanks for the free informative lecture.
That would be a most interesting study indeed regarding “abused” aborted babies. I’m not sure just how anyone intends to study the harm those babies are supposedly still suffering…especially since SDAs traditionally understand the dead to be as if asleep and unaware of what is happening. The similarities between abused children and aborted babies is purely imaginary. The more any know about the cognitive abilities of babies in the womb the better.
This is not denying that I am quite sure God wishes there were another way to deal with a perceived need to have abortions. But I also know that He is a God of choice and understands.
I would strongly suggest that those so inclined study up on what on Ellen White has to say about bringing children into the world. Some of us still believe she was inspired by God. It is much better to become educated in both the word of God (the spirit, rather than the letter, of the scriptures)the His inspiration through EGW.
Teresa,
Let’s say, “He is the God who chooses” Calling him, The god of ‘choice’ is a distortion.
If we “cut to the chase” on this subject, we must ask “Why is it so important to some people that the sin of abortion must be defined as murder?”
The answer is really quit simple. If we can clearly define it as murder, then we can appeal to the civil law to enact a law against abortion because it is murder. Evangelicals in general know this and work endlessly to persuade everyone that abortion is murder. The fact is this, abortion is not murder. And since it is still a sin, a moral decision about abortion must be made by the family as they seek advice from friends, their pastor, doctor and other viable sources of information before they make a final decision. None the less, it is a family decision and civil law has no business nor authority to interfere in an issue beyond their jurisdiction.
And by the way, to claim abortion is the ultimate child abuse is the most absurd statement anyone could possibly make. Are you suggesting that to abort the process of pro-creation is worse than to torture a living baby or child by various forms of neglect and abuse that some have done and are doing today? Talk about a warped sense of evil and abuse.
All Christians should readily see that abortion in principle is a sin. But it is not murder and to label it as such is equivalent to similar accusations made by the Jews about Sabbath breaking. Or, David who ate the Shewbread. John says “There is a sin unto death, and a sin not unto death.” To carefully weigh all issues and circumstances from a moral perspective, and then choose the lesser of two evils is a “sin not unto death.”
Let’s not assume that abortion is a viable form of birth control. But let’s not go to some opposite extreme and try to accuse anyone who chooses abortion on any level or any circumstances of committing murder, either. While we can give our opinion and may even suggest advice on the subject, we have no authority to accuse people of murder who opt for abortion in some circumstances.
The fact is, abortion is murder.
“Evangelicals in general know this and work endlessly to persuade everyone that abortion is murder. The fact is this, abortion is not murder.”
But James White, J.H.Kellogg, Uriah Smith, Kate Lindsay, and J.N.Andrews were not Evangelicals and they said the exact same things. And without the rebuke from either Ellen White, or any other Adventist pre-1960’s that you are so freely contributing. Why the sudden change in Adventist perceptions? Why was it murder in 1875 but not in 2015? Is your criticism also directed at the early Adventist leaders?
“The fact is this, abortion is not murder. And since it is still a sin…”
Bill,you keep making statements which are not only in contradiction to the unanimous conclusions of our SDA pioneers, and the counsel of SOP yet you continue to label abortion as a sin without identifying exactly why it is a sin and which commandment it violates. If the unborn has no inherent value in God’s eyes then why would it be a sin to terminate it if it was not wanted? If it has some value in God’s sight then please identify the extent of the worth it is given? God designed the exact method of human reproduction and provides the miracle of life that springs from following those steps. If He is actively responsible for forming and preserving every human life then where in the Bible do we find the “right’ to extinguish that life?
Doug, would you suggest that a woman taking a “morning after” pill is committing murder? If so, isn’t it murder to practice any birth control and men and women should just have as many children as nature would provide on any and every occasion? This is the Catholic church position. And are you suggesting the very first day a woman is in the process of pro-creation it is a human being?
I don’t think so. And there are lots of things people do that is sin that is not murder. Unless you give sin a generic definition so that any and every sin is related to every other sin, and thus, stealing is murder, coveting is murder, lying is murder…..etc. So all sin is murder since all sin is inter-related.
Murder is to deliberately violate the moral law and kill for your own personal gain. It follows coveting. Are parents murdering if they have their 13 years old daughter have an abortion when she has been raped? I think not.
It is not any easy issue to define and deal with. But to expect the SDA church to deal with abortion as murder with no qualification is not rational nor moral.
‘Doug, would you suggest that a woman taking a “morning after” pill is committing murder?’
Why do you refuse to answer the reasonable questions I’ve asked you? Why is abortion a sin but not murder? I respond to as many of your points as I can, yet you reply like a JW. When I respond to your point and ask you to show why I am wrong you respond with another question detached from the point in debate. So here again, the morning after pill will not be murder if the sperm is not implanted. So it all depends on the internal circumstances which none of us can know the morning after.
“If so, isn’t it murder to practice any birth control and men and women should just have as many children as nature would provide on any and every occasion? This is the Catholic church position.”
No, that is not the Catholic position. You’ve overstated it. Pregnancy prevention is not pregnancy termination. Perhaps you should talk to a knowledgeable Catholic to accurately understand the difference they place between the two. They do not teach that prevention is the same as murder.
“And are you suggesting the very first day a woman is in the process of pro-creation it is a human being?”
Yes. From the time of implantation it begins to develop AS a human being. Otherwise one believes that humanity is still in the process of evolving from one indeterminate species to another. Conception begins the unique human process along with it’s inherent genetic sinfulness.
“And there are lots of things people do that is sin that is not murder.”
Yes, I think that goes without saying.
“Murder is to deliberately violate the moral law and kill for your own personal gain. It follows coveting.”
Doesn’t that perfectly describe 98% of all abortions? (yes, is the answer).
“Are parents murdering if they have their 13 years old daughter have an abortion when she has been raped? I think not.”
Two answers: 1)Are parents murdering if their 13 year old is aborted after playing around with her 15 year old boyfriend? Does the victim of the abortion know the difference? 2) If home invaders leave me with a 1 week old baby to care for am I morally culpable if I leave it on the front porch to die? 3) If a married woman gets pregnant and decides to abort her baby’s life is she off the murder hook because a 13 year old somewhere was raped and pregnant? In each case the growing yet aborted baby had nothing to do with their conception. And as Nic has so often asked, how does killing one’s unwanted baby alleviate the pain and humiliation of being raped?
Wow. Abortion is permitted yet medical marijuana is not?
“Wow. Abortion is permitted yet medical marijuana is not?”
No, recreational weed is now permissible also, as is same sex “marriage”. I think the WOWs went silent a long time ago.
The boasting — and that is what it is — about “keeping the commandments of God” is truly ironic. There is, however, one requirement in The Law that has a tangential bearing on this issue: if in the course of a physical altercation a man hits a woman unintentionally but causes a miscarriage, that man is in deep doo-doo. If the woman herself recovers, the husband can lay a fine on the perpetrator of whatever size.
That alone could be permanently ruinous. The judges are to determine how the man pays the fine, and it is obvious that in some cases that might be over a lifetime.
This law in Exodus 21:22 is not analogous, because the miscarriage and death of the infant was an accident, not an intentional act as in abortion. Even there the act could be a life-altering event. Of course, the law also contemplates that the option to “no harm follows” (meaning to the woman, other than the miscarriage) the rule is the usual one: life for life, eye for eye, etc.
That would suggest to me two conclusions: even accidentally causing a miscarriage may not take one’s life — certainly because it was not intentional — but it might change one’s life for the worse forever.
That does not suggest that there was no intrinsic moral (or for that matter financial) value to the unborn infant. Causing the death of a pregnant woman, even unintionally, which we would call “manslaughter” is a capital offense. One paid with one’s life.
It all sounds very serious to me. And suggests that abortion is even the moreso in God’s view. I would not want to risk waiting until the last judgment on this one!
As a male, what risk to you at the last judgment if only women have abortions? How would you be guilty?
Do you accept guilt for all the abortions that have ever been performed?
“As a male, what risk to you at the last judgment if only women have abortions? How would you be guilty?”
Do you ask that because you don’t understand the nature of sin or the nature of human culpability before the Judge of the whole world? Are even the principles of human law confusingly vague regarding guilt and innocence? Can you answer the question for us?
Yes, I will be happy to answer your question. I am not guilty for your sins, nor anyone else; only mine am I responsible for.
But if you wish to take others’ sins as your own guilt, there is a name for that: masochism.
Elaine is right. The writings of Peter Paul, James or other new testament books do not mention the Gospels. Late first century and early second century writers such as Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius and Polycarp make no mention of the Gospels. The most eminent of the early Christian father s, Justin Martyr wrote near the middle of the second century makes no mention of the Gospels, though he quotes the Old Testament about 300 times. However, Theophilus who wrote in the latter half of the second century mentions the Gospel of John. Irenaeus who wrote a little later mentions all four Gospels. So sometime between Justin Martyr and Theophilus and Irenaeus the Gospels became known. Luke 1:3 indicates that the Gospel of Luke was addressed to Theophilus, however, he could have been an earlier Theophilus, but I don’t think so. (source: The Christ by John E. Remsberg)
It is widely accepted that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, didn’t write Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Never-the-less, I believe the Gospels to be inspired. A careful reading of them should destroy the literal infallible scripture doctrine we were taught years ago. This doctrine is one Satan’s masterful deceptions. There are around 600 differences between the four Gospels. They differ because their writers lived at different times and addressed different audiences. The evidence indicates that the synoptic Gospels used Mark as a source. Matthew is about 90% Mark, where Luke is about 50% Mark. The Gospels tell us something about the biblical writer’s concept of writing history. Getting history right in a modern sense was not their concept. The part about the Magi following a star, King Herod killing all boy babies, and baby Jesus and his parents going to Egypt are only in Matthew. Most scholars think that Matthew created these scenes to shape his story. The baby Jesus story in Matthew finds parallels with the story of Moses and the exodus story. The guiding star of the Magi is like the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites. Herod’s killing the boy babies is like Pharaoh’s killing the babies in Moses’s story. Jesus’s trip to Egypt and back again is like Moses’s and Israel’s journeys from Egypt. Did these things actually happen? If so why isn’t there outside confirmation of Herod’s killing the babies? Is Matthew reporting history as we understand it? I don’t think so. Matthew is connecting Jesus to Israel’s story by making Jesus the second Moses, in this way Jesus is made the center rather than Moses. Matthew audience seems to be primarily the Jews, he is tying Jesus to Israel’s story something that most Jews could relate to.
The central question to all of this is the degree to which an operation may have been in progress during the approximately seventy quiet years following his death to reinterpret his life and salvage it from the disappointment of being a dead healer and a failed messiah. Creating a spiritual narrative from the wreckage is a viable theory considering the known elements of his story and the absence of virtually any data confirming even his presence, much less his activities during his lifetime and the years following. Add to that the jumble and contradictory elements of information you address gospels, and the convoluted analysis it takes to make “sense” of it, fatherdoc, there is a mountain of questions and virtually no answers. Belief and faith rises above it all and is the fortress from which artillery will be aimed and fired at me and others who raise this issue.
Inspiration! What is that?
All four Gospels were constructed long after Jesus’ Resurrection and ascension and the many contradictory accounts only shows that each had an agenda to create a larger-than-life-idea of a man who was a charismatic figure; IOW: a creation of dedicated and faithful believers who repeated the stories many times before the writers finally put them down for posterity.
The total lack of any accounts other than the Gospels should demonstrate that Jesus as God was a myth created by his faithful followers.
Paul never saw or knew Jesus but based his knowledge on others who told him stories of Jesus.
This is how faith is born. If it were all literally true with much more unbiased evidence it would no longer be faith. Faith needs no evidence; but the believers consistently try to marshal facts as evidence!
Elaine,
Faith in what? Yourself? Aren’t you and fatherdoc setting yourselves up as your own authorities as to what is true and false in scripture? Like Thomas Jefferson, cutting up the gospels and pasting up a new version containing only Jesus’ ‘true’ sayings?
For you “The bible says” no longer has any authority.
The Jesus portrayed in the gospels submitted himself to the authority of scripture; not to other men’s interpretations or traditions.
One can only believe what he chooses. No matter the proposition if it does not seem reasonable and explanatory, an individual will refuse to believe simply because he read it or someone told him.
All our judgments must pass through our mental concepts. Which is why we should all be skeptics of any and everything that is told, most especially in the name of religion. Otherwise, there would be no religion. The Bible is neither religion nor God, but man’s definition of what should be believed. Why are there thousands of Christian denominations all claiming to have the truth?
Things that are “literally true” and that which is of “faith” aren’t mutually exclusive. Faith requires evidence which isn’t necessarily visible. Faith is based on facts that can’t necessarily be proven—but they are facts. So, not only are things that are “literally true” and that which is of “faith” not mutually exclusive, they are interdependent.
Please explain how “facts” may not be provable?
FACT: the quality of being actual something that has actual existence; having objective reality.
Faith is subjective; facts are objective.
You reject the Pauline definition of faith. Those who accept Paul’s definition realize it involves “evidence” and “substance” of things that exist, have existed, and/or will exist. Such “evidence” and “substance” constitute the stuff of “objective reality” for those who have faith.
In terms of eternal existence, Paul also suggests that which IS seen is LESS real than that which is NOT seen. (If one rejects the Bible as authoritative or if one rejects it as authentic, none of this will make any sense. However if that be the case, then perhaps one shouldn’t comment on Biblical faith in terms of its relation to facts.)
“Never-the-less, I believe the Gospels to be inspired…Getting history right in a modern sense was not their concept…Matthew created these scenes to shape his story…
That’s a really odd version of inspiration from a Holy God Who claims He can never lie but is only Truth. Easy to discount the believability of the story by citing historical silence of certain factual events but even easier to tell the real story from the same silence?
Several commenters mentioned the “personhood” issue.
According to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is also an
MD, this is the key legal issue with Abortion under Roe vs. Wade. In one of his letters I received, He stated: “A Life at Conception Act declares unborn children “persons” as defined by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, entitled to legal protection.
This is the one thing the Supreme Court admitted in Roe v.
Wade that would cause the case for legal abortion to
“collapse.” When the Supreme Court handed down its now-infamous Roe v. Wade decision, it did so based on a new, previously undefined “right of privacy” which it “discovered” in so-called “emanations” of “penumbrae” of the Constitution.
Of course, as constitutional law it was a disaster.
But never once did the Supreme Court declare abortion itself
to be a constitutional right.
Instead the Supreme Court said:
“We need not resolve the difficult question of when life
begins . . . the judiciary at this point in the development of man’s knowledge is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
Then the High Court made a key admission:
“If this suggestion of personhood is established, the
appellant’s case [i.e., “Roe” who sought an abortion], of
course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then
guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”
The fact is, the 14th Amendment couldn’t be clearer:
“. . . nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”
Furthermore, the 14th Amendment says:
“Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.”
That’s exactly what a Life at Conception Act would do.”
See his website for more on his proposed “Life At Conception Act”.
Also, on the subject of birthdays, while we in the West celebrate a child’s birthday from its date of birth,
the Chinese and other Easterners have for millenniums considered a child is one year old at birth, and at its first birthday it is two years old. This difference in perspective may be in part due to the use of “inclusive” vs. “exclusive” systems of reckoning, and “parts reckoned as wholes”, but the 9-months pregnancy from conception may also be involved in this different perspective on the age of a child, depending on the meaning of the terms “child” and “person.”
Those who find “Person” in the Bible to mean conceptus differs from the legal definition of “person” and they are in direct conflict. One is based on an individual’s religion based on their interpretation of the Bible; the legal is defined by law, often for prosecutorial purposes. Conflating them is often seen in both pro and con arguments.
“Those who find “Person” in the Bible to mean conceptus differs from the legal definition of “person” and they are in direct conflict.”
Those who define “person” in the law to mean something differing from the dictionary definition of “person” seek to change the purpose of the law. Perhaps you then agree with the Dred Scott decision in which the Court decided that black slaves were “a subordinate and inferior class of beings”? You argue that if they rule it it is so? Suppose Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton are overruled, will you then argue for the personhood of the unborn?
Yes, I will be happy to answer your question. I am not guilty for your sins, nor anyone else; only mine am I responsible for.
But if you wish to take others’ sins as your own guilt, there is a name for that: masochism.
“For the sake of the fathers” God remembers his covenant with Israel. “Manasseh filled Jerusalem with innocent blood and God would not pardon that.” Guilt, Shmilt, you are going to suffer and/or benefit from the covenant God made with his People. God didn’t make a covenant with an individual named Elaine Nelson.
Also Elaine – you wrote: One can only believe what he chooses. No matter the proposition if it does not seem reasonable and explanatory, an individual will refuse to believe simply because he read it or someone told him.
This does not describe Jesus. He believed every jot and tittle of the law and the prophets. Scripture was his authority. Every temptation he answered from scripture. He understood perfectly the awful fulfillment of prophecy in his suffering flesh. He did not pick and choose. He believed it all. To call it ‘masochism’ is worse than blasphemy.
“Yes, I will be happy to answer your question. I am not guilty for your sins, nor anyone else; only mine am I responsible for.”
If you remember, it was your question but I’m with you on your answer.
“But if you wish to take others’ sins as your own guilt, there is a name for that: masochism.”
Not necessarily. If I wish to take on the guilt so as to suffer the consequences of other’s (say you for instance) sins so they (you) wouldn’t have to suffer for them wouldn’t that be different than masochism? I would call that an epitome of selflessness at the least. Finding pleasure in one’s sin despite the knowledge of the coming legal consequences is truly masochistic. Thousands (or more) of men and women have aborted their unborn thinking to find lasting pleasure in their choice only to suffer the pains of guilt, depression, and remorse, and sometimes infertility in the years to come. Trying to convince them that what they did was a good thing is trying to add to their self destructive pleasures.I don’t believe that abortion is the “ultimate” form of child abuse (though it certainly ranks in the top 2 runner up slots) but it does also qualify for one of the top self abuse positions.
When did the Supreme Court render the opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment classified “person” as unborn?
Sen. Rand Paul once practiced ophthalmology and has never been appointed to the Supreme Court. Some of his other statements on vaccinations, and other science topics is the politician speaking; and a physician who must have skipped some basic premed school subjects on basic science.
“Why are there thousands of Christian denominations all claiming to have the truth?”
Perhaps because it is built in the nature of all humanity to perceive that there is an objective and knowable Truth? I suspect that you would be included in this number.
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth an the life” To the extent that these denominations have Jesus Christ, their claim to truth is valid. Christianity is a Messianic culture. We can’t know him or have him apart from the Gospels. We must have his story to know truth.
William, you say, “We can’t know him or have him apart from the Gospels. We must have his story to know truth.” Neither Paul, Peter, James had access to the Gospels. The Gospels didn’t appear until the end of the first century or early second century. So how did the Christians between the death of Christ and the appearance of the Gospels know Christ?
fatgherdoc, did you not read my reply to Elaine’s mis-statement about the dating of the gospels above? I give you the advice I gave her: get your tuition back from wherever you got your theology degree. Quickly.
Paul certainly had access to what he called “my gospel,” which is reflected precisely in the Book of Luke. While it is likely from internal and external evidence that Luke reached its FINAL FORM and was published as such in the early 80s, it is equally likely that the Aramaic? gospel of Matthew was published in its final form by the 90s.
Mark, writing Peter’s gospel shortly after the martyrdom as the earliest attestation suggests, has priority, which makes it no surprise that it is used in its entirety in both Mathew and Luke, though edited to their respective audience.
And that the “Signs Gospel” contained in the Gospel of John was very early. Earlier perhaps then the others, where the subject is just plain “Jesus” …
The gospels had a long complicated transmission history, and such simplistic statements should be avoided. We in fact know some things about Jesus Christ ONLY because Paul describes them. What do you think he was doing for three solid years after his call? Just vacationing in Arabia?
What logic is there to saying that Peter of James (presumably James the Just) did not have the gospels? Do you have a sense of what an “apostle” was and its reference to the Roman practice? Such a statement is simply nonsensical.
I fully understand why some would want to glom onto the plus-ultra liberal (especially European) claims about the gospels that have not met with any acceptance because they do not rest on sound evidence.
While I understand that, such actions as the Yavneh/Jamnia promulgation of the minim and the references thereto I the Synoptics have to be taken into account as reality.
There are a tiny core of Europeans who still insist the kingdom of David never existed, even after the royal palace was found where the Deuteronomic History said it would be in relation to the fortress Jebus and the many references — precise ones — to such things as “the house of Omri” or “the people of David” etc.
There are, of course, still members of the Flat Earth Society. The Hudson Institute never withdrew the claim that cigarette smoking had nothing to do with cancer, and its main point now is there is no global warming. So people tend to believe what they choose to believe, quite apart from evidence and details.
“The Gospels didn’t appear until the end of the first century or early second century. So how did the Christians between the death of Christ and the appearance of the Gospels know Christ?”
“The Gospels didn’t appear until the end of the first century or early second century. So how did the Christians between the death of Christ and the appearance of the Gospels know Christ?”
doc, I’m not sure I understand the question you pose?? You admit there were Christians before the (alleged) appearance of the Gospels yet you wonder how they could become Christians unless they had the gospels? And you hint that you are apt to believe Peter, Paul, and Mary, I mean, James who you say didn’t write the gospels? Aren’t the probable answers rather obvious? Paul’s own writings demonstrate that he had specific interaction with those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus story. Peter himself validated the Mount of Transfiguration story in his later letter. If the gospel accounts were not true surely these men would have written to their audiences that many of the stories were just myths and not to be believed, don’t you think?
William, you are making a lot of claims that I don’t understand. You said, “God didn’t make a covenant with an individual named Elaine Nelson.” I thought that the new covenant was made with all. Wouldn’t that include Elaine and me also? Would you explain your claim, please.
Elaine said “One can only believe what he chooses.” That seems to be a reasonable statement. But you say that, “This does not describe Jesus. He believed every jot and tittle of the law and the prophets. Scripture was his authority. Every temptation he answered from scripture. He understood perfectly the awful fulfillment of prophecy in his suffering flesh. He did not pick and choose. He believed it all. To call it ‘masochism’ is worse than blasphemy.” It seems to me that if Jesus believed every jot and tittle he was choosing to believe. I don’t see the discrepancy, would you explain. If He believed every jot and tittle why was he frequently interpreting scripture? Explain please.
Thanks for the factual info, John.
Fatherdoc – “William, you say, “We can’t know him or have him apart from the Gospels. We must have his story to know truth.” Neither Paul, Peter, James had access to the Gospels. The Gospels didn’t appear until the end of the first century or early second century. So how did the Christians between the death of Christ and the appearance of the Gospels know Christ?”
Um, the original apostles knew Jesus personally – obviously. So did a bunch of others – at least 500 others.
When the apostles started to die out, and Jesus hadn’t obviously returned, they wisely decided to write these personal experiences of Jesus down. The Gospels weren’t constructed out of thin air but rather out of a range of oral traditions from people who knew Jesus personally.
John (one of the original apostles) may have been still alive when his Gospel was written. We don’t know. But the answer to the question, ‘Christians between the death of Christ and the appearance of the Gospels know Christ’ is oral tradition.
The beginning of Luke makes that clear – there were already existing accounts out there.
Sorry and by ‘oral tradition’ I also mean some written accounts like “Q”.